Maternal iodine excess: an uncommon cause of acquired neonatal hypothyroidism.

Background Excessive iodine exposure is an often overlooked cause of neonatal hypothyroidism. Case presentation We present an infant with iodine-induced hypothyroidism, which was detected at age 15 days by newborn screening. The infant's iodine excess resulted from maternal intake of seaweed soup both during and after pregnancy.

Provider variability in the initial diagnosis and treatment of congenital hypothyroidism.

Background: Early diagnosis and expeditious treatment of newborns with congenital hypothyroidism (CH) is necessary to avoid mental retardation.

Methods: A survey of 44 practitioners in the southern US was conducted to better understand common practices regarding neonatal CH and the findings were compared with current guidelines in the US and Europe.

Results: Responses indicated some consensus that 10-15 μg of thyroid hormone/kg/day was the appropriate dosage.

A comparison of ventilator-associated pneumonia rates as identified according to the National Healthcare Safety Network and American College of Chest Physicians criteria.

Objective: The objective of this study was to compare the observed rates of ventilator-associated pneumonia when using the National Healthcare Safety Network vs. the American College of Chest Physicians criteria.

Design: Prospective, observational cohort study.

Temporal variation and host association in the Campylobacter population in a longitudinal ruminant farm study.

Campylobacter jejuni and C. coli were quantified and typed, using multilocus sequence typing (MLST), from fecal samples collected from a mixed cattle and sheep farm during summer. Cattle had a significantly higher prevalence than sheep (21.

Niche segregation and genetic structure of Campylobacter jejuni populations from wild and agricultural host species.

Bacterial populations can display high levels of genetic structuring but the forces that influence this are incompletely understood. Here, by combining modelling approaches with multilocus sequence data for the zoonotic pathogen Campylobacter, we investigated how ecological factors such as niche (host) separation relate to population structure. We analysed seven housekeeping genes from published C.

Diagnostic utility of plasma procalcitonin for nosocomial pneumonia in the intensive care unit setting.

Background: Nosocomial pneumonia is a difficult diagnosis to establish in the intensive care unit setting, due to the non-specific nature of the clinical and radiographic findings. Procalcitonin is a circulating biomarker that may become elevated in the presence of bacterial infection.

Methods: We conducted a prospective single-center cohort study at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, a 1,200-bed urban teaching hospital in St Louis, Missouri.

Evolution of an agriculture-associated disease causing Campylobacter coli clade: evidence from national surveillance data in Scotland.

The common zoonotic pathogen Campylobacter coli is an important cause of bacterial gastroenteritis worldwide but its evolution is incompletely understood. Using multilocus sequence type (MLST) data of 7 housekeeping genes from a national survey of Campylobacter in Scotland (2005/6), and a combined population genetic-phylogenetics approach, we investigated the evolutionary history of C. coli.

Ventilator-associated tracheobronchitis in a mixed surgical and medical ICU population.

Background: Ventilator-associated tracheobronchitis (VAT) is considered an intermediate condition between bacterial airway colonization and ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). The purpose of this prospective cohort study was to further characterize VAT in terms of incidence, etiology, and impact on patient outcomes.

Methods: Patients intubated for >48 h in the surgical and medical ICUs of Barnes-Jewish Hospital were screened daily for the development of VAT and VAP over 1 year.

Antimicrobial resistance profiles of Campylobacter from humans, retail chicken meat, and cattle feces.

We determined the antimicrobial resistance profiles of Campylobacter isolates from cases of sporadic human infection (n = 119), retail chicken meat (n = 105), and cattle feces (n = 105). Ampicillin and tetracycline resistance was highest in human isolates (32% and 29%, respectively) and retail chicken isolates (25% and 25%, respectively), whereas nalidixic acid resistance was highest in cattle fecal isolates (20%). We found that the antimicrobial resistance profiles were more similar in human and chicken meat isolates than those observed when comparing human and cattle fecal isolates.

Campylobacter excreted into the environment by animal sources: prevalence, concentration shed, and host association.

An intensive study of 443 isolates of Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli from 2031 fecal samples excreted by animal sources including cattle, sheep, and pigs, a range of wild and domesticated avian species and pets is described. The prevalence found in the majority of animal sources ranged from 22% to 28% with poultry being highest at 41% and cats and dogs lowest (<5%). The average count excreted for each animal source was found not to be significantly different ranging from approximately 10(2) to 10(5) cfu/g.

Spatiotemporal homogeneity of Campylobacter subtypes from cattle and sheep across northeastern and southwestern Scotland.

Source attribution using molecular subtypes has implicated cattle and sheep as sources of human Campylobacter infection. Whether the Campylobacter subtypes associated with cattle and sheep vary spatiotemporally remains poorly known, especially at national levels. Here we describe spatiotemporal patterns of prevalence, bacterial enumeration, and subtype composition in Campylobacter isolates from cattle and sheep feces from northeastern (63 farms, 414 samples) and southwestern (71 farms, 449 samples) Scotland during 2005 to 2006.

Severe hospital-acquired pneumonia: a review for clinicians.

Hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP) is one of the most commonly encountered nosocomial infections. Patients who develop severe HAP experience considerable morbidity and mortality, and the condition results in a substantial expenditure of health care resources. A large body of scientific literature about HAP now exists.

Campylobacter genotyping to determine the source of human infection.

Background: Campylobacter species cause a high proportion of bacterial gastroenteritis cases and are a significant burden on health care systems and economies worldwide; however, the relative contributions of the various possible sources of infection in humans are unclear.

Methods: National-scale genotyping of Campylobacter species was used to quantify the relative importance of various possible sources of human infection. Multilocus sequence types were determined for 5674 isolates obtained from cases of human campylobacteriosis in Scotland from July 2005 through September 2006 and from 999 Campylobacter species isolates from 3417 contemporaneous samples from potential human infection sources.

Campylobacter genotypes from food animals, environmental sources and clinical disease in Scotland 2005/6.

A nationwide multi-locus sequence typing (MLST) survey was implemented to analyze patterns of host association among Campylobacter jejuni and Campylobacter coli isolates from clinical disease in Scotland (July 2005-September 2006), food animals (chickens, cattle, sheep, pigs and turkey), non-food animals (wild birds) and the environment. Sequence types (STs) were determined for 5247 clinical isolates and 999 from potential disease sources (augmented with 2420 published STs). Certain STs were over represented among particular sample sets/host groups.

Attribution of Campylobacter infections in northeast Scotland to specific sources by use of multilocus sequence typing.

We show that a higher incidence of campylobacteriosis is found in young children (age, <5 years) living in rural, compared with urban, areas. Association of this difference with particular animal sources was evaluated using multilocus sequence typing. This evaluation was achieved by comparing Campylobacter isolates originating from these children, retail poultry, and a range of animal sources by use of source attribution and phylogenetic analysis methods.

Temporal changes in kin structure through a population cycle in a territorial bird, the red grouse Lagopus lagopus scoticus.

Populations of red grouse (Lagopus lagopus scoticus) undergo regular multiannual cycles in abundance. The 'kinship hypothesis' posits that such cycles are caused by changes in kin structure among territorial males producing delayed density-dependent changes in aggressiveness, which in turn influence recruitment and regulate density. The kinship hypothesis makes several specific predictions about the levels of kinship, aggressiveness and recruitment through a population cycle: (i) kin structure will build up during the increase phase of a cycle, but break down prior to peak density; (ii) kin structure influences aggressiveness, such that there will be a negative relationship between kinship and aggressiveness over the years; (iii) as aggressiveness regulates recruitment and density, there will be a negative relationship between aggressiveness in one year and both recruitment and density in the next; (iv) as kin structure influences recruitment via an affect on aggressiveness, there will be a positive relationship between kinship in one year and recruitment the next.

Has retail chicken played a role in the decline of human campylobacteriosis?

Between 2001 and 2006, the incidence of human Campylobacter infections decreased by 10 and 27% in Scotland and the Grampian region of Scotland, respectively. Contemporaneous collection and analyses of human and retail-chicken isolates from Grampian were carried out over a 10-week period in 2001 and again in 2006 in order to determine whether the fall in the incidence of human infections was related to the retail-chicken exposure route. Rates of carriage of Campylobacter on chicken carcasses from retail outlets in Grampian in 2001 and 2006 were estimated.

Rapid diagnostic PCR assays for members of the Culicoides obsoletus and Culicoides pulicaris species complexes, implicated vectors of bluetongue virus in Europe.

Biting midges of the Culicoides obsoletus Meigen and Culicoides pulicaris L. species complexes (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae) are increasingly implicated as vectors of bluetongue virus in Palearctic regions. However, predicting epidemiological risk and the spread of disease is hampered because whilst vector competence of Culicoides is expressed only in adult females, morphological identification of constituent species is only readily applicable to adult males and some species distinguishing traits have overlapping character states.

Resistance to abomasal nematodes and individual genetic variability in reindeer.

Resistance to parasites is believed to have a widespread influence on demographic and adaptive processes. In systems where parasites impose a fitness cost on their host, heterozygotes may be selected because they are more resistant to parasites than homozygotes. Our objective was to assess the relationships between genomewide individual heterozygosity and abomasal nematode burdens in female Svalbard reindeer (Rangifer tarandus platyrhynchus) after the effects of host age, locality, season, and year had been accounted for.

Phylogeographic structure and postglacial evolutionary history of water voles (Arvicola terrestris) in the United Kingdom.

The phylogeographic pattern of mitochondrial DNA variation in water voles (Arvicola terrestris) from 57 localities across the United Kingdom and representative samples from Spain, France, Switzerland and Finland was determined from sequence variation in the central portion of the control region. Twenty-seven different haplotypes were resolved which formed two distinct phylogenetic clades. This major division separated haplotypes found in Scotland from those found in England and Wales.