Publications by authors named "Lourdes Irizarry"
Background: Influenza is a substantial cause of annual morbidity and mortality; however, correctly identifying those patients at increased risk for severe disease is often challenging. Several severity indices have been developed; however, these scores have not been validated for use in patients with influenza. We evaluated the discrimination of three clinical disease severity scores in predicting severe influenza-associated outcomes.
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- Most pediatric sepsis studies in the US rely on administrative data or focus on ICUs; this study reviews medical records from 10 states to better understand sepsis in children and young adults.
- Out of 736 patients, 60.1% had underlying health conditions, with a majority experiencing community-onset sepsis, often associated with healthcare settings.
- Age-specific variations were observed, indicating differing underlying conditions and risk factors for sepsis, suggesting a need for targeted awareness and prevention strategies among outpatient healthcare providers.
Importance: Controlling antimicrobial resistance in health care is a public health priority, although data describing antimicrobial use in US nursing homes are limited.
Objective: To measure the prevalence of antimicrobial use and describe antimicrobial classes and common indications among nursing home residents.
Design, Setting, And Participants: Cross-sectional, 1-day point-prevalence surveys of antimicrobial use performed between April 2017 and October 2017, last survey date October 31, 2017, and including 15 276 residents present on the survey date in 161 randomly selected nursing homes from selected counties of 10 Emerging Infections Program (EIP) states.
Importance: Current information on the characteristics of patients who develop sepsis may help in identifying opportunities to improve outcomes. Most recent studies of sepsis epidemiology have focused on changes in incidence or have used administrative data sets that provided limited patient-level data.
Objective: To describe sepsis epidemiology in adults.
Importance: Seasonal influenza virus infection is a major cause of morbidity and mortality and may be associated with respiratory and nonrespiratory diagnoses.
Objective: To examine the respiratory and nonrespiratory diagnoses reported for adults hospitalized with laboratory-confirmed influenza between 2010 and 2018 in the United States.
Design, Setting, And Participants: This cross-sectional study used data from the US Influenza Hospitalization Surveillance Network (FluSurv-NET) from October 1 through April 30 of the 2010-2011 through 2017-2018 influenza seasons.
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- This study analyzed antibiotic use for urinary tract infections (UTIs) among nursing home residents in the U.S., based on a 2017 survey of 15,276 residents from 161 facilities across 10 states.
- A total of 407 residents received 424 antibiotics for UTI, with a prevalence rate of 2.66 per 100 residents, varying significantly among nursing homes.
- Notably, a quarter of these prescriptions were for UTI prophylaxis with an average duration of 111 days, despite limited supporting evidence, and fluoroquinolones were the most commonly used type of antibiotic, raising concerns about potential adverse effects in older patients.
Cryptococcal meningitis, often seen in immunocompromised hosts, is also a disease of the immune-competent individual. The diagnosis of cryptococcal meningitis requires a lumbar puncture with measurement of the opening pressure, standard laboratory assessment including cell count, protein and glucose, fungal culture, and cryptococcal polysaccharide antigen. Serum cryptococcal antigen is of great diagnostic value in individuals infected with HIV.
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