When patients need long-term treatment with IV antibiotics, hospitals usually let them do it at home — but not if they have a history of injection drug use. A Boston program wants to change that.
Sepsis, the body's overreaction to infection, strikes more than a million Americans a year and kills more than 250,000. Evidence suggests that regulations can improve its diagnosis and patient care.
The chance of catching Lyme disease from an individual tick ranges from zero to roughly 50 percent. Three factors matter: the tick species, where it came from and how long the tick was feeding.
How close are we to the point when a bacterial infection can resist all available antibiotics? A case in Nevada, reported this past week in the CDC journal, says that we're already there.
In Florida, perfect timing and alert medical staff saved a teen from almost certain death. But in North Carolina, one young woman died of an amoeba infection after rafting at a popular tourist site.
Infection and autoimmune activity result in inflammation. And psychiatric researchers now suspect that inflammation may play a role in some cases of depression and other mental illnesses.
Most tests for viruses aim to detect only one or two. But researchers can now check a drop of blood for antibodies to hundreds of viruses, tracing the history of a lifetime of infections, old and new.
Infections with C. difficile are a big problem for people in hospitals and nursing homes. An experimental treatment with spores from a harmless version of the bacterium prevented new infections.
