A case of nocardiosis in a post-renal transplant patient is being reported for the first time from Eastern India. The patient had multiple abscesses on the right thigh and chest. Direct examination of the aspirated pus by Gram stain and modified Ziehl Neelsen stain revealed gram-positive beaded, partially acid-fast, branching filaments. Culture of the pus yielded Nocardia asteroides. The patien...

Figure 1. Gram stain of the isolate from a blood culture (original magnification, 1000x) showing gram-negative rods with both filamentous (arrow) and dumbbell-shaped (arrowheads) morphologies characteristic of Cardiobacterium hominis. Diagnosis: Cardiobacterium hominis prosthetic valve endo-carditis. C. hominis is one of the fastidious gram-negative bacteria that belong to the HACEK group of or...

This study aimed at determining the sensitivity and specificity of Gram staining of synovial fluid as a diagnostic tool in acute septic arthritis. A retrospective study was made of 22 patients who had arthroscopic lavage following a provisional diagnosis of acute septic arthritis of the knee joint. Gram stains and cultures of the knee aspirates were compared with the clinical and laboratory par...

I discovered indigo rings and circles in ATCC® 25922TM Escherichia coli cultures when I added the non-specific polysaccharide stain lactophenol cotton blue to Gram stained slides sampled from 96-well plates used to measure quantitative growth kinetics (QGK) in virtual colony count antimicrobial assays. I attribute the dark blue staining to the presence of capsular polysaccharides and bacterial ...

Many bloodstream infections (BSI) in patients with central venous catheters (CVC) are not catheter-related (CR). Assessment of catheter involvement without catheter withdrawal has not been studied in candidemia. We assessed the value of conservative techniques to evaluate catheters as the origin of candidemia in patients with CVC in a prospective cohort study (superficial Gram stain and culture...

BACKGROUND Respiratory infections with sputum production are a major reason for physician visits, diagnostic testing, and antibiotic prescription in the United States. We sought to determine whether the simple characteristic of sputum color provides information that impacts resource utilization such as laboratory testing and prescription of antibiotics. METHODS Out-patient sputum samples subm...

Meningitis of bacterial origin is a severe infection that must receive immediate attention and prompt treatment. We evaluated a basic fuchsin-methylene blue, ethyl alcohol-phenol staining procedure (Wayson stain) and compared it with the Gram stain procedure for evaluation of cerebrospinal fluid. All smears were prepared within 30 min of receiving the specimen and examined without knowledge of ...

Background: Mimiviruses or giant viruses that infect amoebas have the ability to retain the Gram stain, which is usually used to colour bacteria. There is some evidence suggesting that Mimiviruses can also infect human cells. Guided by these premises, we performed a routine Gram stain on a variety of human specimens to see if we could detect the same Gram positive blue granules that identify Mi...