by drawing blood through a heparin lock, patients can be protected from skin damages duo to repeated needle sticks. in addition, this procedure can assist to gain more precise results in laboratory test and to prevent further complications. probably, you have ever used a heparin lock in order to infusion of medicines but, it is possible that you never use of that for blood sampling. both two pr...

background while tuberculosis (tb) can be diagnosed by microscopy and culture, the sensitivity of ziehl-neelsen staining is variable and culture results require 4 - 8 weeks to be determined. polymerase chain reaction (pcr) and its modifications, including nested pcr, might be promising methods for the rapid diagnosis of tb. objectives this study aimed to evaluate the performance of nested pcr o...

background the prognostic value of blood culture testing in the diagnosis of bacteremia is limited by contamination. objectives in this multicenter study, the aim was to evaluate the contamination rates of blood cultures as well as the parameters that affect the culture results. materials and methods sample collection practices and culture data obtained from 16 university/research hospitals wer...

were “unknown agents.” For the sake of objectivity, we based our assumption on the aggregate of information for known pathogens rather than on “expert opinion.” Interestingly, however, the Council of Science and Technology’s “expert opinion” of the percentage of diarrheal illness due to foodborne transmission was 35% (1), nearly identical to the figure we developed. As noted in our article, pat...

is started on a new antibiotic, always take an “antibiotic timeout” and reassess the patient after the first 48 to 72 hours of antimicrobial therapy to assure that the patient has responded to the antimicrobial therapy, as many of the uropathogens are multidrug-resistant. A urinalysis and culture should be collected based on the patient’s symptoms and not solely based on the urine’s characteris...

analysis of PCR products amplified from five strains of spotted fever group Rickettsiae with Rr with Rr 190. synthase gene comparison, a new tool for phylogenetic analysis, and its application for the Rickettsiae. To the Editor: As virologists whose specialties include diagnostic electron microscopy (EM), we read with interest the discussion on bioterrorism scenarios (1,2) and the subsequent no...