RBC transfusion in the ICU. Is there a reason?

Objective: To evaluate RBC transfusion practice in the ICU.

Design: Retrospective chart review.

Setting: Multidisciplinary ICU in a tertiary care center.

Plasmid diversity in Escherichia coli isolated from processed poultry and poultry processors.

Plasmids of bacteria selected from different bacterial populations because they shared a distinctive antimicrobial resistance phenotype have sometimes had identical restriction fragments. Such identical plasmids are thought to belong to small and thus epidemic clones because the plasmid content of unselected resistant isolates has seemed diverse. To survey this presumed diversity and its implications for the lineage of resistance plasmids we examined the transferability, sizes and EcoR1 restriction fragment sizes of plasmids in both Escherichia coli isolated randomly from poultry raised by 16 growers as they were being processed through two plants and in isolates from the urine of women processing poultry in those plants.

Absence of HIV transmission from an infected orthopedic surgeon. A 13-year look-back study.

Objective: To determine the risk of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transmission from an HIV-infected orthopedic surgeon to patients undergoing invasive procedures.

Design: Retrospective epidemiologic follow-up study.

Participants: A total of 2317 former patients on whom the orthopedic surgeon performed invasive procedures between January 1, 1978, and June 30, 1991 [corrected].

False resistance to imipenem with a microdilution susceptibility testing system.

Routine monitoring of antibiotic resistance at Children's Hospital, Boston, detected a dramatic increase in the prevalence of imipenem-resistant strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Further studies documented that false resistance to imipenem was due, in part, to the loss of imipenem potency in customized MIC microdilution trays supplied by Sensititre Ltd. (West Sussex, United Kingdom).

Nonproduction of toxic shock syndrome toxin 1 by coagulase-negative staphylococci.

We tested 187 strains of coagulase-negative staphylococci (CNS) for the production of toxic shock syndrome toxin 1 (TSST-1). A total of 111 CNS strains were isolated from the tampons of menstruating women and 74 were isolated from unused tampons. Two strains were isolated from the genital tract of a patient with toxic shock syndrome.