Facilitating OPAT in rural areas.

A sizable portion of the United States' population lives in a rural setting. Coupled with a limited number of infectious diseases providers, this has created a need for innovative practice models to deliver outpatient antimicrobial therapy and clinical monitoring in rural settings. This article reviews existing literature regarding outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy in rural settings and explores existing barriers and potential solutions that may be of assistance to providers looking to provide these services.

A Datasheet for the INSIGHT Birmingham, Solihull, and Black Country Diabetic Retinopathy Screening Dataset.

Purpose: Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is the most common microvascular complication associated with diabetes mellitus (DM), affecting approximately 40% of this patient population. Early detection of DR is vital to ensure monitoring of disease progression and prompt sight saving treatments as required. This article describes the data contained within the INSIGHT Birmingham, Solihull, and Black Country Diabetic Retinopathy Dataset.

Bond Strength and Adhesion Mechanisms of Novel Bone Adhesives.

Bone adhesives offer distinct advantages over the use of screws to attached internal fixation plates (IFPs). As the chemical composition of bone is similar to dentine, it is possible that the types of monomers used to make dentine adhesives could be utilised to affix IFPs to bone. The ability to attach a bio-resorbable IFP to porcine bone was assessed for the monomer 10-methacryloyloxydecyl dihydrogen phosphate (MDP), used either as a homopolymer or a copolymer with urethane dimethacrylate (MDP + U).

Revisiting β-Lactams for Treatment of Urinary Tract Infections: Assessing Clinical Outcomes of Twice-Daily Cephalexin for Empiric Treatment of Uncomplicated Urinary Tract Infections.

The 2011 Infectious Diseases Society of America guidelines for treatment of uncomplicated urinary tract infections (UTIs) recommend non-β-lactam antibiotics for empiric therapy. However, increasing Escherichia coli and Klebsiella spp. resistance to first-line antibiotic therapies has necessitated the need for alternative agents.

A Single-Center Evaluation of Extended Infusion Piperacillin/Tazobactam for Empiric Treatment in the Intensive Care Unit.

Piperacillin/tazobactam (PTZ) extended infusion (EI) is often used empirically in the intensive care unit (ICU). Gram-negative (GN) organisms with PTZ minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) >16/4 µg/mL are considered intermediate or resistant. The objective of this study was to evaluate MICs of GN isolates from the ICU to determine whether the hospital protocol for PTZ 3.