The impact of Clostridium difficile on a surgical service: a prospective study of 374 patients.

Objective: To evaluate the epidemiology of Clostridium difficile colitis (CDC) in a subset of patients admitted specifically to a surgical service.

Summary Background Data: CDC is an increasingly prevalent nosocomial infection that can prolong hospitalization and adversely affect patient outcome. Although this disease has been investigated extensively in patients admitted to medical services, the incidence and risk factors for the development of this disease in patients admitted to a surgical service have not been studied.

Diagnostic yield of bronchoalveolar lavage and bronchoscopic lung biopsy for detection of Pneumocystis carinii.

Objective: To assess the need to perform a bronchoscopic lung biopsy (BLB) in addition to bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) to obtain a definitive diagnosis of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia.

Design: We retrospectively reviewed the results of concurrently collected paired BAL and BLB specimens to determine the diagnostic yield of both methods for the detection of P. carinii organisms.

Detection of human cytomegalovirus DNA, RNA, and antibody in normal donor blood.

Peripheral blood samples from 313 normal donors were tested for prior human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection: 37%, 0.9%, and 43% of the samples were positive by antibody detection, DNA hybridization, and RNA hybridization assays, respectively. An early mRNA, which is transcribed from a HindIII-b fragment of the CMV genome and detected with an antisense RNA probe, can be detected more frequently than antibody and CMV DNA.