Publications by authors named "Roslyn G Podmore"
Article Synopsis
- Legionnaires' disease is often under-diagnosed due to inconsistent testing practices, prompting a national study in New Zealand to evaluate the effectiveness of routine PCR testing for detecting cases in hospitalized pneumonia patients.
- During the study from May 2015 to May 2016, 5622 respiratory specimens were tested, leading to the identification of 238 hospital cases, significantly increasing case detection three-fold compared to previous years.
- The findings revealed that Legionella longbeachae was the most common cause, indicating the importance of systematic testing for better understanding regional disease patterns and informing prevention strategies.
Background: Legionnaires' disease cannot be clinically or radiographically distinguished from other causes of pneumonia, and specific tests are required to make the diagnosis. Currently, testing occurs erratically and, instead, clinicians rely on empiric treatment strategies and ignore public health implications of the diagnosis. We aimed to measure the increase in case detection of Legionnaires' disease following the introduction of routine polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing of respiratory specimens.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFStreptococcus pseudopneumoniae is a recently described streptococcus that is phenotypically and genetically distinct from Streptococcus pneumoniae and other viridans streptococci. Key characteristics of S. pseudopneumoniae are the absence of a pneumococcal capsule, insolubility in bile, resistance or indeterminate susceptibility to optochin when incubated in 5% CO2 but susceptibility to optochin when incubated in ambient air, and a positive reaction with the AccuProbe DNA probe hybridization test.
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