Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Matthews 7th birthday
Matthews 7th birthday
It was Matthews 7th birthday yesterday, and to celebrate Matthew went to see family in the morning and had a party in the afternoon. Before that, Louise got up early especially for Matthew to open his presents (she had worked the night before, and wouldnt normally have been up before 12). Matthew had a Nintendo 3DS, which he was very pleased with, as well as Marble Run - something hed asked for. Louise went back to bed while I took Matthew and Daniel to see Grandma and Grandad, where Matthew opened his present from them and played at their house. We then went to see Gramps.
In the afternoon, Matthew and 5 friends had a bowling party. Matthews friend Isaac surpassed everyone else at the bowling, getting a strike or half strike on almost all of the games and ending with a score of 141. Matthew finished third but seemed to be more pleased that the boys beat the girls (there were 3 of each). After the bowling, Matthew and friends played a few games of air hockey before dinner (sausages) and before his birthday cake was served (complete with dimming of lights and a strange chipmunk like rendition of Happy Birthday on the tannoy). Matthew seemed a little embarrassed by this, as he felt everyone was looking! They were then able to play in the play area before they went home.
Matthew had a late night as we went over the road to our neighbours for a takeaway. He was able to play with Isaac, who was there too. He went to bed at 10.30pm so was able to make the most of his birthday!
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BioEdge When will transgender women deliver babies
BioEdge When will transgender women deliver babies
BioEdge: When will transgender women deliver babies?
When will transgender women deliver babies?
by Michael Cook | 18 Jun 2016 | 6 comments
from Scientific American / Getty Images
If we welcome transgender women, are transgender mothers a big deal? Although surgeons are still mastering the technique of transplanting wombs, patients are already asking when this will become possible.At the moment, the only team which has succeeded in transplanting a uterus into a woman who later gave birth is in Sweden. Dr Mats Brännström developed the operation to help women who had been born without a uterus or who had to have hysterectomies. But elsewhere in Europe and in the US doctors are attempting the daunting surgery and it has been widely publicized. Scientific American spoke to several doctors who said that a handful of their transwomen patients were interested, even though it is still far from successful.
“A lot of this work [in women] is intended to go down that road but no one is talking about that,” Mark Sauer, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University, told the magazine. .
The operation is far more complex than most people imagine. First, the aspiring transwoman needs to create IVF embryos and store them. Then there is castration surgery and high doses of hormones. Surgery would be needed to create a “neo-vagina”. Anti-rejection drugs are needed.
There are other issues as well: the cost is very high and the operation could last for 10 or 11 hours. Would it be ethical for a doctor to allow a patient to risk his life in experimental surgery when there are safer alternatives for having children like adoption?
The one bright side is that uteruses will be available, since people who transition from female to male may have their wombs removed. Some have already asked doctors whether they could donate them.
The bottom line, say most doctors, is that men won’t be having babies any time soon. “I respect reproduction and I don’t think we will ever see this in my lifetime in a transgender woman,” says Marci Bowers, a gynecological surgeon in California. “That’s what I tell my patients.”
I have no love for Donald Trump, but it does seem unfair that only he is being accused of being crazy in this year’s election for president. It is a truth universally acknowledged that any man (or woman) who hankers after high public office must be in need of a psychiatrist. In 2013 psychologists published an article asserting that most recent presidents have suffered from “grandiose narcissism, which comprises immodesty, boastfulness and interpersonal dominance”. Remember that Hillary Clinton has been accused of all these failings, not just Trump. Perhaps they are crafty, not crazy.
That’s why the Goldwater Rule is a good thing. As Xavier Symons mentions below, this is an informal rule of medical ethics for psychologists and psychiatrists which bans them from commenting on the mental state and stability of public figures. It’s very rash to predict that psychological flaws disqualify a person from holding public office. Winston Churchill was depressive and an alcoholic and became the most admired statesman of the 20th century. Abraham Lincoln probably suffered from depression but is the most revered of all American presidents. Mr Trump may be unsuited to the job of president, but I’d prefer to make up my own mind on the subject without airy speculation from psychiatrists who have never spoken to the man himself.
Michael Cook
Editor
BioEdge
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Increased Mortality Rates Associated with Staphylococcus aureus and Influenza Co infection Maryland and Iowa USA1 Volume 22 Number 7—July 2016 Emerging Infectious Disease journal CDC
Increased Mortality Rates Associated with Staphylococcus aureus and Influenza Co infection Maryland and Iowa USA1 Volume 22 Number 7—July 2016 Emerging Infectious Disease journal CDC
Increased Mortality Rates Associated with Staphylococcus aureus and Influenza Co-infection, Maryland and Iowa, USA1 - Volume 22, Number 7—July 2016 - Emerging Infectious Disease journal - CDC
Volume 22, Number 7—July 2016
Dispatch
Increased Mortality Rates Associated with Staphylococcus aureus and Influenza Co-infection, Maryland and Iowa, USA1
On This Page
- The Study
- Conclusions
- Suggested Citation
Jennifer S. McDanel
, Eli N. Perencevich, Jeremy Storm2, Daniel J. Diekema, Loreen Herwaldt, J. Kristie Johnson, Patricia L. Winokur, and Marin L. Schweizer
, Eli N. Perencevich, Jeremy Storm2, Daniel J. Diekema, Loreen Herwaldt, J. Kristie Johnson, Patricia L. Winokur, and Marin L. SchweizerSuggested citation for this article
Abstract
We retrospectively analyzed data for 195 respiratory infection patients who had positive Staphyloccocus aureus cultures and who were hospitalized in 2 hospitals in Iowa and Maryland, USA, during 2003–2009. Odds for death for patients who also had influenza-positive test results were >4 times higher than for those who had negative influenza test results.
Staphylococcus aureus is a common cause of respiratory infections, including pneumonia (1), and can lead to necrotizing pneumonia and death (2–4). Influenza complicated by S. aureus co-infection can progress rapidly to death within a week of symptom onset (3,4). However, few studies have evaluated whether patients who are co-infected with influenza and S. aureus are more likely to experience poor outcomes compared with patients who are infected with S. aureus alone. We compared patient characteristics and outcomes of patients who had a respiratory culture that grew S. aureus and who tested positive for influenza with those who had negative influenza test results.
The Study
This retrospective cohort study included pediatric and adult patients admitted to the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics (Iowa City, IA, USA) or to the University of Maryland Medical Center (Baltimore, Maryland, USA) during 2003–2009. First, we used codes from the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD-9-CM), to identify patients with influenza-like illness (ILI) (5). This criterion was part of an initial study investigating influenza-like illness and S. aureus pneumonia (J.S. McDanel, unpub. data). Patients were included in the study if they had respiratory cultures (sputum, bronchial specimen, or tracheal aspirate) that grew S. aureus and were tested for influenza before or during their admissions. If a patient was admitted >1 time, only the admission with the first S. aureus positive respiratory culture was included. The University of Iowa institutional review board approved this study.
The primary outcome of interest, 30-day in-hospital mortality, was defined as death occurring in the hospital within 30 days of the first culture that grew S. aureus. The adapted Charlson Comorbidity Index served as an aggregate score for co-occurring conditions (6). The year of each patient’s first positive S. aureus culture was dichotomized: 2003–2007 and 2008–2009.
We conducted bivariable analyses using either the ?2 test or the Fisher exact test for categorical variables and the Student t-test or Wilcoxon rank-sum test for continuous variables. We used logistic regression to identify associations between potential predictor variables and 30-day mortality rates. We included variables in the multivariable model using a manual stepwise method. Variables associated with death (p<0.25) in the bivariable regression analysis were examined for fit within the multivariable model and were retained if statistically significant (p<0.05). The year of each patient’s first positiveS. aureus culture was forced into the model. We analyzed data using SAS software version 9.3 (SAS Institute, Cary, NC, USA).
A total of 195 patients had >1 respiratory culture that grew S. aureus and were also tested for influenza. Sputum samples (115, 59%) and bronchial washes (50, 26%) were the most common respiratory specimens. Blood cultures of 17 (9%) patients grew S. aureus. Respiratory or blood samples of 109 (56%) patients grew methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA). Most patients (166, 85%) were admitted to the University of Maryland Medical Center; 116 (59%) were male, and median age was 42 (interquartile range 5–59) years.
Of the 195 patients, 32 (16%) had positive influenza test results. Patients who had a positive influenza test were more likely to receive quinolones (odds ratio [OR] 3.30, 95% CI 1.51–7.21) than were patients whose influenza tests were negative (Table 1). Patients who had a positive influenza test were significantly more likely to have the positive S. aureus respiratory culture collected <2 days after hospital admission than were the patients whose influenza tests were negative (OR 3.27, 95% CI 1.39–7.70).
Of the 32 influenza-positive patients, 9 (28%) died; of the 163 influenza-negative patients, 18 (11%) died (OR 3.15, 95% CI 1.27–7.86; p = 0.021) (Table 2). Of the 9 influenza-positive patients who died, 5 had MRSA. Among the 27 patients who died, those with a positive influenza test were more likely to have diabetes than those who had a negative influenza test (33% vs. 0%; p = 0.029). The multivariable logistic regression model found that, after statistically adjusting for year and time from admission to collection of S. aureus culture samples, patients whose influenza tests were positive had >4-fold increased odds of death compared with patients whose influenza tests were negative (OR 4.31, 95% CI 1.57–11.83; p<0.005) (Table 2).
Conclusions
Our results are consistent with the results of other studies. Other investigators reported poor outcomes among patients who were co-infected with influenza viruses and S. aureus (3,4,7). Kallen et al. found a statistically significant increased risk for death among patients who had positive influenza test results and community-acquired S. aureus pneumonia, compared with patients who had negative influenza test results and community-acquired S. aureuspneumonia (7). The Kallen et al. study included patients who had either MRSA or methicillin–susceptible S. aureus pneumonia (7) but evaluated only 47 patients. The sample size for our study was much larger than previously performed studies, and we were able to examine mortality rates among patients who had a respiratory culture that grew either MRSA or methicillin-susceptible S. aureus.
Additionally, co-infection with influenza and S. aureus has been examined in animal models to identify mechanisms that cause poor outcomes (8–12). Severity of illness related to co-infection has been associated with a dysfunctional cell repair system and an altered immunologic response such as suppression of macrophage function, inhibition in phagocytic bacterial clearance, and cell damage to the airway system (8–12). Investigators have hypothesized that influenza damages epithelial cells in the respiratory system, providing opportunity for enhanced bacterial attachment (8,11). Once bacteria invade, cell destruction and fluid cause dysfunction of the airway system (8,11).
This study had limitations. First, the investigation might have excluded patients who were tested for influenza at other facilities or who did not have laboratory-confirmed influenza. Second, we could not determine whether the respiratory cultures that grew S. aureus represented infections or colonization. However, the information we describe remains clinically relevant because often clinicians do not know whether patients with positive S. aureus cultures are infected or colonized. Diagnosing S. aureus pneumonia is challenging, and acquiring a lower respiratory culture such as a bronchial specimen or tracheal aspirate can be invasive and difficult to collect. Therefore, if S. aureus pneumonia is suspected (e.g., symptoms and positive sputum culture), patients may be treated without a confirmed positive lower respiratory culture. Third, our dataset did not include information about variables such as influenza vaccination status, mechanical ventilation, co-infection with organisms other than influenza and S. aureus, and whether the pneumonia was necrotizing. Fourth, misclassification bias may exist based on our definition of influenza infection. Patients with a negative influenza test may be misclassified since we were unable to determine the time interval between the onset of ILI symptoms and the collection of the influenza sample. Therefore, patients may have recovered from influenza before receiving an influenza test. Last, influenza-like illness ICD-9-CM codes were used to identify the cohort because the patients initially were included in a study of influenza-like illness and S. aureus pneumonia (J.S. McDanel, unpub. data). Therefore, patients may have been missed if they had a respiratory infection with S. aureus and the condition or symptoms were not captured through an ICD-9-CM code.
In conclusion, among patients whose respiratory cultures grew S. aureus, patients with influenza were significantly more likely to die than were patients whose influenza tests were negative. Interventions that increase influenza vaccination rates among patients at high risk for S. aureus respiratory infections may prevent both co-infection and death.
Dr. McDanel is a postdoctoral fellow and adjunct lecturer at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. Her research interests include the treatment and prevention of hospital-associated infections.
Acknowledgments
This study was funded in part by an ASPIRE Young Investigator Award from Pfizer (#WS79560E); Pfizer had no role in the design or conduct of the study or the writing of the manuscript. M.L.S. was funded by a Veterans Health Administration Health Services Research and Development Career Development Award (CDA 11-215). E.N.P. was funded through a VA HSR&D grant (IIR 09-099). J.S.M. received research funding from Cubist Pharmaceuticals.
J.S.M. has received speaker honorarium from bioMerieux. D.J.D. has received research funding from Cerexa, a subsidiary of Forest Laboratories.
References
- Kollef MH, Shorr A, Tabak YP, Gupta V, Liu LZ, Johannes RS. Epidemiology and outcomes of health-care-associated pneumonia: results from a large US database of culture-positive pneumonia. Chest. 2005;128:3854–62 .DOIPubMed
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Four pediatric deaths from community-acquired methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus—Minnesota and North Dakota, 1997–1999. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 1999;48:707–10.PubMed
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Severe methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus community-acquired pneumonia associated with influenza–––Louisiana and Georgia, December 2006-January 2007. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2007;56:325–9.PubMed
- Hageman JC, Uyeki TM, Francis JS, Jernigan DB, Wheeler JG, Bridges CB, Severe community-acquired pneumonia due to Staphylococcus aureus, 2003–04 influenza season. Emerg Infect Dis. 2006;12:894–9 .DOIPubMed
- Marsden-Haug N, Foster VB, Gould PL, Elbert E, Wang H, Pavlin JA. Code-based syndromic surveillance for influenza like illness by International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision. Emerg Infect Dis. 2007;13:207–16 .DOIPubMed
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- Kallen AJ, Brunkard J, Moore Z, Budge P, Arnold KE, Fosheim G, Staphylococcus aureus community-acquired pneumonia during the 2006 to 2007 influenza season. Ann Emerg Med. 2009;53:358–65 .DOIPubMed
- Kash JC, Taubenberger JK. The role of viral, host and secondary bacterial factors in influenza pathogenesis. Am J Pathol. 2015;185:1528–36 .DOIPubMed
- Robinson KM, McHugh KJ, Mandalapu S, Clay ME, Lee B, Scheller EV, Influenza A virus exacerbates Staphylococcus aureus pneumonia in mice by attenuating antimicrobial peptide production. J Infect Dis. 2014;209:865–75 .DOIPubMed
- Sun K, Metzger DW. Influenza infection suppresses NADPH oxidase-dependent phagocytic bacterial clearance and enhances susceptibility to secondary methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infection. J Immunol. 2014;192:3301–7 .DOIPubMed
- Kash JC, Walters KA, Davis AS, Sandouk A, Schwartzman LM, Jagger BW, Lethal synergism of 2009 pandemic H1N1 influenza virus and Streptococcus pneumoniae coinfection is associated with loss of murine lung repair responses. MBiol 2011; 2:e00172e11. DOIPubMed
- Kostrzewska K, Massalski W, Narbutowicz B, Zielinski W.
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He got sum right!
He got sum right!
This evening I discovered that Matthew had been writing out his own sums - and marking them! As you can see, he got a few right, but still has a bit to learn about the larger sums.
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