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A history of cancer in a patient with ischemic stroke often raises additional concerns for the clinician, including assessment of cancer activity, as well as possible thrombophilias. The use of thrombolytic agents is also controversial in patients with active cancers.
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Investigators of the stroke arrhythmia monitoring Database in Erlangen, Germany, performed continuous telemetric cardiac rhythm monitoring on 501 acute stroke patients admitted to their stroke unit.
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In survivors of critical illness with documented cognitive impairment at discharge, commonly used cognitive screening tests do not predict which of these patients will experience long-term cognitive impairment.
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In a retrospective, propensity-score-matched, case-control study, investigators compared clinical outcomes and drug tolerabilities between nafcillin and cefazolin in the treatment of MSSA bacteremia. The authors found that cefazolin was as efficacious as nafcillin in the treatment of MSSA bacteremia while causing fewer adverse drug events.
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This study of 537 hospitals found that those with the lowest mortality rates for acute myocardial infarction have management strategies that differ in important ways from those at hospitals with higher acute myocardial infarction mortality.
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This comprehensive review on postoperative patient handoffs confirms that they are high-risk events associated with adverse patient outcomes, and permits the identification of several strategies likely to improve the process despite the incompleteness and other limitations of the existing literature.
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Institution of a formal audit and feedback program resulted in a decrease in use of broad-spectrum antibiotics and a 31% reduction in cases of Clostridium difficile infection.
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Linezolid was non-inferior to vancomycin in patients with nosocomially acquired MRSA pneumonia. Although mortality was similar among linezolid- and vancomycin-treated patients, several outcomes (such as clinical cure and microbiological cure) favored linezolid.
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This study reports data from the International Collaboration on Endocarditis-Prospective Cohort Study (ICE-PCS) on the clinical characteristics of infective endocarditis related to pacemakers and ICDs. ICE-PCS collected data on 3284 patients with endocarditis from 64 centers in 28 countries in a central database.
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Knowledge of pediatric-specific antimicrobial susceptibility data improves prescribing selections of empiric antibiotic treatment. Providers should advocate for availability of pediatric-specific antimicrobial susceptibility data wherever practical.