Infections

Significant morbidity and mortality is caused by healthcare-acquired infections (HAIs), including surgical site infections (SSIs), ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), catheter-related bloodstream infections (CRBSIs), catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) and other healthcare-related infections and conditions caused by drug-resistant pathogens that jeopardize patient safety.

Scientists Find New Way to Stimulate the Immune System to Fight Infection

These new data are an essential step toward understanding the operation of these key cells in the immune system, and they could provide a new therapeutic approach to fighting infection. They also suggest that the operation of NK cells must be precisely regulated to ...More
January 20, 2012
Posted in News
Many High-Risk Americans Don't Get Hepatitis B Vaccine

A recently published study investigating hepatitis B vaccination rates in the United States found that more than half of adults at risk for hepatitis B virus remain unvaccinated. With many of these individuals making contact with the healthcare system, including HIV ...More
January 19, 2012
Posted in News
Combination of Oral Drugs Suppresses Common Type of Hepatitis C

A new combination of investigational drugs successfully suppressed hepatitis C genotype 1 infection in a high percent of patients who had not responded to previous treatment in a study led by a University of Michigan hepatologist. The study, which will be published Jan. 19, ...More
January 19, 2012
Posted in News
H5N1 Virus Targets Pulmonary Endothelial Cells

The H5N1 virus has killed roughly 60 percent of humans infected, a mortality rate which is orders of magnitude higher than that of seasonal influenza virus. Many victims of the former fall heir to acute respiratory distress syndrome—the inability to breathe. Now researchers ...More
January 19, 2012
Posted in News
Single Dose of Antibiotic Can Increase Vulnerability to Intestinal Infection

Yet another study adds to the growing evidence that antibiotics can disrupt the balance of the intestinal flora, with negative effects on health. A team of researchers from the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York City, has shown in mouse models that a single ...More
January 19, 2012
Posted in News
AACN Updates Clinical Guidelines to Prevent CAUTIs

Urinary tract infections account for nearly 40 percent of hospital-acquired infections in acute care hospitals, triggering increased hospital costs and higher patient morbidity and mortality rates. Compounding the toll of these infections, Medicaid, Medicare and many other ...More
January 18, 2012
Posted in News, Policies and Practice
Bacterial Toxin Tied to Chronic Urinary Tract Infections

Researchers from the University of Utah have identified a process by which the most common types of urinary tract infection-causing bacteria are able to trigger bladder cell shedding and disable immune responses. According to this new study, published in the Jan. 19, 2012, ...More
January 18, 2012
Posted in News
Engineers Developing New Ways to Combat Catheter-Associated Infections

Researchers at the University of Maryland's A. James Clark School of Engineering, backed by funding from the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation, are developing tools that promise powerful new ways to combat catheter-based and other infections without provoking bacterial ...More
January 18, 2012
Posted in News
Research Team Develops New Model to Anticipate Disease Outbreaks at 2012 Olympics

A research team led by St. Michael's Hospital's Dr. Kamran Khan is teaming up with British authorities to anticipate and track the risk for an infectious disease outbreak at the Olympics in London this summer. For the first time, experts from around the world are working ...More
January 17, 2012
Posted in News
Does the La Nina Weather Pattern Lead to Flu Pandemics?

Worldwide pandemics of influenza caused widespread death and illness in 1918, 1957, 1968 and 2009. A new study examining weather patterns around the time of these pandemics finds that each of them was preceded by La Niña conditions in the equatorial Pacific. The study's ...More
January 17, 2012
Posted in News