The skin microbiome is a complex ecosystem with important implications for cutaneous health and disease. Topical antibiotics and antiseptics are often employed to preserve the balance of this population and inhibit colonization by more pathogenic bacteria. However, despite their widespread use, the impact of these interventions on broader microbial communities remains poorly understood. Here, w...

Chlorhexidine is a common antiseptic and disinfectant used in the medical field. Allergy to chlorhexidine has been reported in the literature but life-threatening anaphylactic shock is rare. We present a case of severe anaphylactic shock due to chlorhexidine occurring during surgery. Literatures suggest that profound anaphylactic shock to chlorhexidine is commonly preceded by milder, non-specif...

A 32-year-old immunocompetent man sustained severe traumas contaminated with organic material due to a car accident. An infection caused by Lichtheimia ramosa at the site of contamination was early diagnosed and cured by multiple surgical debridement and daily cleansing with antiseptic solution only.

The source of ideas and information on medicines most important to journalists in the Netherlands, and most commonly consulted by them, is known to be the scientific medical literature. In this study we therefore, explored the relation between the kind of medicines discussed in the scientific medical literature and those discussed in newspapers. A content analysis of scientific medical journals...

Patients who are falsely convinced that a parasite has invaded their body are extremely difficult to treat. They are at once desperate for help and disdainful of efforts to help them. They insist that anti-infective medication be prescribed, but they are dubious that it will be effective. These patients despair of finding a credulous physician, and they continue to seek different therapies to c...

Various sulfonamides and trimethoprim were given orally twice a day to healthy volunteers. The drug concentrations in serum and tissue fluid from skin blisters were determined concomitantly. Maximal serum concentrations were obtained after 1 to 3 h. Absorption of sulfacarbamide and sulfadimidine was more rapid than for sulfadiazine, sulfamethoxazole, and trimethoprim. The penetration to blister...

In clinical trials of complicated intra-abdominal infections, assessment of adequacy of the initial surgical approach to the management of the infection is of considerable importance in determining outcome. Antibiotic therapy would not be expected to adequately treat the infection if the surgical procedure was inadequate with respect to source control. Inclusion of such cases in an efficacy ana...

A flexible and short synthesis of sulfonamide-bridged di-, tri-, tetra-, and octasaccharide glycomimetics was accomplished by reaction of glycosyl thioacetates with amino sugar substrates. The chemistry to incorporate the sulfonamide linker in place of a native O-glycosidic bond was broadly scoped, allowing access to head-to-head (1↔1) and head-to-tail (1→2), (1→3), (1→4), and (1→6) sulfonamide...

Practice guidelines for community-based parenteral anti-infective therapy (CoPAT) have recently been formulated in several countries. These guidelines emphasize the importance of teamwork and the interdisciplinary nature of CoPAT, and they use similar criteria for patient selection and evaluation, anti-infective agent selection and administration, and clinical monitoring. There are now guidelin...

Over the last decades, the interest in the relationships between the pharmacokinetics (PK) and pharmacodynamics (PD) of antimicrobial agents has increased and, therefore, the use of PK/PD indices and expressions has spread widely. The appropriate definition and use of these parameters is a matter of controversy. This paper contains a proposal to use PK/PD expressions for antimicrobial agents an...