The examination of a well-stained film of either clinical material or organisms grown in laboratory media constitutes an important part of most investigations in hospital microbiology laboratories. The staining of large numbers of microscope slides, usually by Gram's method, is however timeconsuming, and a number of reports have been made on methods mechanising this procedure. Cremer (1968) and...

Despite the wide occurrence of ritual behavior in humans and animals, much of its causal underpinnings, as well as evolutionary functions, remain unknown. A prominent line of research focuses on ritualization as a response to anxiogenic stimuli. By manipulating anxiety levels, and subsequently assessing their motor behavior dynamics, our recent study investigated this causal link in a controlle...

Gram stains remain the cornerstone of diagnostic testing in the microbiology laboratory for the guidance of empirical treatment prior to availability of culture results. Incorrectly interpreted Gram stains may adversely impact patient care, and yet there are no comprehensive studies that have evaluated the reliability of the technique and there are no established standards for performance. In t...

A prospective study was performed over a 4.5-year period to determine the ability of a sputum Gram stain to predict the cause of community-acquired bacterial pneumonia. A blood culture isolate, rather than a sputum culture, served as the reference standard to provide precise identification of the etiologic agent. The study population comprised 59 bacteremic adults who expectorated a valid sputu...

Methods We conducted a retrospective review of all patients of 16 years and under that underwent aspiration with or without washout of suspected septic joint from January 2005 to March 2011. Cases were defined as any patient with an organism identified on microbiology culture. The association between clinical features, laboratory results, operative findings and gram stain examination were compa...

BACKGROUND Routine immunization (RI) is a key child survival intervention. Ensuring acceptable standards of RI service delivery is critical for optimal outcomes. Accumulated evidences suggest that 'supportive supervision' improves the quality of health care services in general. During 2009-2010, the Government of Odisha and UNICEF jointly piloted this strategy in four districts to improve RI pr...

AIMS To assess the impact of blood culture results and early clinical liaison on the treatment of patients with bacteraemia. METHODS 123 patients with significant positive blood cultures were followed over a nine month period in a 620 bed teaching hospital. The impact of early blood culture reporting and clinical liaison on the cost and appropriateness of treatment was assessed. RESULTS Emp...

PURPOSE OF REVIEW The landscape of genetic diagnostic testing has changed dramatically with the introduction of next-generation clinical exome sequencing (CES), which provides an unbiased analysis of all protein-coding sequences in the roughly 21,000 genes in the human genome. Use of this testing, however, is currently limited in clinical neurologic practice by the lack of a framework for appro...

A 19-year old girl presented with painful recurrent abscesses in axillae and perineal region of 1 year duration. The abscess used to rupture and drain, resulting in healed sinus and scar formation. Routine investigations were normal. F N A C showed dense suppurative inflammation with macrophages, a few squamous and apocrine cells. Gram stain showed positive tiny cocci in chains. Culture yielded...

We reviewed 194 revision arthroplasties of the hip and knee performed over a ten-year period. The results of intraoperative Gram staining were available in 169 (87%). Thirty-two were found to be infected (11 hips and 21 knees) and 137 had no evidence of infection. Intraoperative Gram staining was negative in all 169 cases. The method therefore had a sensitivity of 0% for detecting infection. We...