Background: Adults hospitalised to a non-intensive care unit (ICU) ward with moderately severe community-acquired pneumonia are frequently treated with broad-spectrum antibiotics, despite Dutch guidelines recommending narrow-spectrum antibiotics. Therefore, we investigated whether an antibiotic stewardship intervention would reduce the use of broad-spectrum antibiotics in patients with moderately severe community-acquired pneumonia without compromising their safety.
Methods: In this cross-sectional, stepped-wedge, cluster-randomised, non-inferiority trial (CAP-PACT) done in 12 hospitals in the Netherlands, we enrolled immunocompetent adults (≥18 years) who were admitted to a non-ICU ward and had a working diagnosis of moderately severe community-acquired pneumonia.
Gut microbiota composition in patients with colonization is not well investigated. We aimed to identify bacterial signatures associated with resistance and susceptibility to colonization (CDC) and infection (CDI). Therefore, gut microbiota composition from patients with CDC ( = 41), with CDI ( = 41), and without CDC (controls, = 43) was determined through 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEngineered living materials have the potential for wide-ranging applications such as biosensing and treatment of diseases. Programmable cells provide the functional basis for living materials; however, their release into the environment raises numerous biosafety concerns. Current designs that limit the release of genetically engineered cells typically involve the fabrication of multilayer hybrid materials with submicrometer porous matrices.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCampylobacter fetus is a species of gram-negative bacteria whose primary reservoir is the gastrointestinal tracts of cattle and sheep. Human infections are rare, though often invasive and sometimes fatal. In this paper, we studied an outbreak of six patients with a C.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis paper describes the trends in prevalence of ESBL producing Enterobacteriaceae (ESBL-E) and ESBL genes, measured in five consecutive yearly Point Prevalence Surveys (PPS). All patients present in the hospital and in a day-care clinic (including patients on dialysis) on the day of the survey, were screened for perianal ESBL-E carriage. Perianal swabs were taken and cultured using an enrichment broth and a selective agar plate.
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