News

Loyola University Health System is the first academic medical center in Illinois to take disinfection to futuristic levels. Nicknamed Ralph by the housekeeping staff at Gottlieb Memorial Hospital and little Joe at Loyola University Medical Center, 3-foot upright cylindrical robots provide the finishing touches to room sanitation. A rotating telescopic head emits germicidal ultraviolet (UV) rays for 15 minutes in closed, unoccupied rooms to systematically kill germs.

Investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) describe pathologic findings from 40 case reports of fungal infection in patients who had been given contaminated epidural, paraspinal, or intra-articular steroid injections and correlate these findings with clinical and laboratory data. The report, published in the September issue of the American Journal of Pathology, alerts clinicians and the general public to the catastrophic dangers of contaminated epidural injections.