The use of whole blood gene expression to derive diagnostic biomarkers capable of distinguishing between phenotypically similar diseases holds great promise but remains a challenge. Differential gene expression analysis is used to identify the key genes that undergo changes in expression relative to healthy individuals, as well as to patients with other diseases. These key genes can act as diag...

A 64-year-old Bangladeshi female presented to her primary care physician with a tender right breast lump that had been present for 4-5 days along with subjective fevers and malaise. Initial biopsy revealed granulomas, but Ziehl-Neelsen and Gram stain were negative for TB so antibiotics were prescribed for abscess until culture came positive for tuberculosis. She was started on triple therapy fo...

CONTEXT Neonatal mortality rate is declining globally. The aim of the present study is to identify relevant indicators for assessing newborn care in hospitals by a systematic review. EVIDENCE ACQUISITION A search on electronic data base and manual searches of personal files for studies on quality indicators of newborn care were carried out. Searching 9 bibliographic databases, we found 85 art...

BACKGROUND The endgame for polio eradication includes coordinated global cessation of oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV), starting with the cessation of vaccine containing OPV serotype 2 (OPV2) by switching all trivalent OPV (tOPV) to bivalent OPV (bOPV). The logistics associated with this global switch represent a significant undertaking, with some possibility of inadvertent tOPV use after the swit...

BACKGROUND Following the 2012 declaration by World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for Africa and the WHO Executive Board to ramp up routine immunization (RI) activities, began to intensify activities to strengthen RI. This study assessed how the intensification of RI helped strengthen service delivery in local government areas (LGAs) of northern Nigeria at high risk for polio trans...

In this study, urinary culture, urinary Gram stain, and four tests within the urinalysis, leukocyte esterase, nitrite, microscopyfor bacteria, and microscopyforpyuria, were examined in 100 children with symptoms suggesting urinary tract infection. Our purpose was to determine the validity of the urinary Gram stain compared with a combination of pyuria plus Gram stain and overall urinalysis (pos...

Broth culture of Trichomonas vaginalis is considered the "gold standard" for the diagnosis of trichomoniasis. Two studies were carried out to evaluate modified Columbia agar (MCA) for the isolation of T. vaginalis from clinical samples. Study I compared isolation on MCA to that on liquid medium with 889 vaginal samples. Out of 63 samples positive for T. vaginalis (7.1% of total), MCA identified...

Purpose. Canaliculitis is classically associated with Actinomyces species, which are filamentous bacteria; the purpose of this study was to evaluate the extent to which nonfilamentous bacteria colonize canalicular concretions by using graded histopathological analysis. Methods. This is a series of 16 cases. The percentage of Gram-positive/Gomori's methenamine silver-positive filamentous bacteri...

The selective bacteriostatic effect of triphenylmethane dyes has long been known. It has been found by several authors (Churchman, 1928, and others) that these dyes used in gram staining also inhibit the growth of the grampositive microorganisms. The relations between bacteriostatic power and chemical structure of these dyes were studied by Browning and Gilmour (1913), Kligler (1918), Fairbroth...

The role for laboratory interpretation of microbiologic results remains controversial, and many laboratories leave the interpretation of culture results entirely to physicians. We examined the effects of furnishing a laboratory interpretation of sputum quality on physician decision making. Quality of sputum was determined on Gram-stained smears by using a modification of the criteria of Bartlet...