Evaluation of a Pharmacy-to-Dose Pneumococcal Vaccination Protocol at an Academic Medical Center.

BACKGROUND: In February 2016, a pharmacy-to-dose (PTD) pneumococcal vaccination protocol was implemented to aid in the appropriate selection of pneumococcal vaccines. OBJECTIVE: The primary objective was to compare the rate of appropriate vaccine ordering with the PTD protocol. Secondary objectives were to assess vaccine administration rate and determine factors preventing patients from receiving the vaccine after appropriate selection. METHODS: This was a single-center, retrospective cohort study of adult patients admitted to an inpatient service. Eligible patients were 19 years of age or older and had either a PTD pneumococcal vaccination order placed or an alert triggered indicating that the patient was a candidate for a vaccination. Patients were excluded if they had contraindications to receiving either pneumococcal vaccine. The Fisher exact test was used to evaluate the primary objective, and descriptive statistics were used to evaluate the secondary objectives. RESULTS: A total of 327 patients were included in the analysis: 167 in the preprotocol cohort and 160 in the postprotocol cohort. The correct vaccine ordering rates were found to be 26.9% (45/167) and 83.1% (133/160) in the preprotocol and postprotocol cohorts, respectively ( P < 0.001). In the postprotocol cohort, 17.5% (28/160) of patients did not have a vaccine administered. Reasons for vaccine administration failure were identified as patient refusal, patient expired during admission, vaccine not dispensed by pharmacy, and vaccine dispensed by pharmacy but returned. CONCLUSIONS: The PTD pneumococcal vaccination protocol significantly improved correct vaccine ordering rates.

Seed: a user-friendly tool for exploring and visualizing microbial community data.

SUMMARY: In this article we present Simple Exploration of Ecological Data (Seed), a data exploration tool for microbial communities. Seed is written in R using the Shiny library. This provides access to powerful R-based functions and libraries through a simple user interface. Seed allows users to explore ecological datasets using principal coordinate analyses, scatter plots, bar plots, hierarchal clustering and heatmaps. AVAILABILITY AND IMPLEMENTATION: Seed is open source and available at https://github.com/danlbek/Seed. CONTACT: danlbek@gmail.com SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

The relationship between agricultural intensification and biological control: experimental tests across Europe.

Agricultural intensification can affect biodiversity and related ecosystem services such as biological control, but large-scale experimental evidence is missing. We examined aphid pest populations in cereal fields under experimentally reduced densities of (1) ground-dwelling predators (-G), (2) vegetation-dwelling predators and parasitoids (-V), (3) a combination of (1) and (2) (-G-V), compared with open-fields (control), in contrasting landscapes with low vs. high levels of agricultural intensification (AI), and in five European regions. Aphid populations were 28%, 97%, and 199% higher in -G, -V, and -G-V treatments, respectively, compared to the open fields, indicating synergistic effects of both natural-enemy groups. Enhanced parasitoid: host and predator: prey ratios were related to reduced aphid population density and population growth. The relative importance of parasitoids and vegetation-dwelling predators greatly differed among European regions, and agricultural intensification affected biological control and aphid density only in some regions. This shows a changing role of species group identity in diverse enemy communities and a need to consider region-specific landscape management.

Agricultural intensification and biodiversity partitioning in European landscapes comparing plants, carabids, and birds.

Effects of agricultural intensification (AI) on biodiversity are often assessed on the plot scale, although processes determining diversity also operate on larger spatial scales. Here, we analyzed the diversity of vascular plants, carabid beetles, and birds in agricultural landscapes in cereal crop fields at the field (n = 1350), farm (n = 270), and European-region (n = 9) scale. We partitioned diversity into its additive components alpha, beta, and gamma, and assessed the relative contribution of beta diversity to total species richness at each spatial scale. AI was determined using pesticide and fertilizer inputs, as well as tillage operations and categorized into low, medium, and high levels. As AI was not significantly related to landscape complexity, we could disentangle potential AI effects on local vs. landscape community homogenization. AI negatively affected the species richness of plants and birds, but not carabid beetles, at all spatial scales. Hence, local AI was closely correlated to beta diversity on larger scales up to the farm and region level, and thereby was an indicator of farm- and region-wide biodiversity losses. At the scale of farms (12.83-20.52%) and regions (68.34-80.18%), beta diversity accounted for the major part of the total species richness for all three taxa, indicating great dissimilarity in environmental conditions on larger spatial scales. For plants, relative importance of alpha diversity decreased with AI, while relative importance of beta diversity on the farm scale increased with AI for carabids and birds. Hence, and in contrast to our expectations, AI does not necessarily homogenize local communities, presumably due to the heterogeneity of farming practices. In conclusion, a more detailed understanding of AI effects on diversity patterns of various taxa and at multiple spatial scales would contribute to more efficient agri-environmental schemes in agroecosystems.

Suture materials - Current and emerging trends.

Surgical sutures are used to facilitate closure and healing of surgical- or trauma-induced wounds by upholding tissues together to facilitate healing process. There is a wide range of suture materials for medical purpose and the main types include absorbable and nonabsorbable. Recently, there is a growth in the development of classes of suture materials based on their properties and capabilities to improve tissue approximation and wound closure. This review outlines and discusses the current and emerging trends in suture technology including knotless barbed sutures, antimicrobial sutures, bio-active sutures such as drug-eluting and stem cells seeded sutures, and smart sutures including elastic, and electronic sutures. These newer strategies expand the versatility of sutures from being used as just a physical entity approximating opposing tissues to a more biologically active component enabling delivery of drugs and cells to the desired site with immense application potential in both therapeutics and diagnostics. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part A: 104A: 1544-1559, 2016.

Evaluation of Changes in Citalopram Prescribing Patterns Following a US Food and Drug Administration Alert: A Retrospective Cohort Study.

OBJECTIVE: The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning stating that patients older than 60 years are not recommended to receive doses of citalopram exceeding 20 mg daily due to concerns of corrected QT (QTc) prolongation. The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of the FDA warning on prescribing patterns of citalopram in patients 60 years of age and older. METHOD: This is a retrospective cohort study of hospitalized patients 60 years of age and older prescribed citalopram from October 24, 2010, to August 24, 2011 and from November 24, 2011, to September 24, 2012. Records were examined for the presence of baseline risk factors for QTc prolongation and torsades de pointes. RESULTS: The issuance of an FDA warning was not associated with an observable change in prescribing patterns of citalopram. A total of 98.8% of patients had at least 1 risk factor for QTc prolongation. No significant difference in the total number of risk factors was seen between groups (P = .915). No differences were seen in risk factors prewarning and postwarning, except a higher percentage had left ventricular hypertrophy (P = .001) or history of syncope (P = .043) prior to the warning. More subjects were prescribed concomitant proarrhythmic medications (P = .009) after the FDA warning was issued. Similar percentages of each group were receiving daily dosages > 20 mg of citalopram (P = .600). CONCLUSIONS: The issuance of an FDA warning did not produce observable changes in prescribing patterns of citalopram. Modifiable risk factors and optimal dosing may be targets of interventions aimed at promoting safer use of citalopram.

Risk factors for hypotension in urgently intubated burn patients.

BACKGROUND: When urgently intubating patient in the burn intensive care unit (BICU), various induction agents, including propofol, are utilized that may induce hemodynamic instability. METHODS: A retrospective review was performed of consecutive critically ill burn patients who underwent urgent endotracheal intubation in BICU. Basic burn-related demographic data, indication for intubation, and induction agents utilized were recorded. The primary outcomes of interest were clinically significant hypotension requiring immediate fluid resuscitation, initiation or escalation of vasopressors immediately after intubation. Secondary outcomes included ventilator days, stay length, and in-hospital mortality. RESULTS: Between January 2003 and August 2010, we identified 279 urgent intubations in 204 patients. Of these, the criteria for presumed sepsis were met in 60% (n=168) of the intubations. After intubation, 117 patients (42%) experienced clinically significant hypotension. Propofol (51%) was the most commonly utilized induction agent followed by etomidate (23%), ketamine (15%), and midazolam (11%). On multiple logistic regression, %TBSA (OR 1.016, 95% CI 1.004-1.027, p<0.001) and presumed sepsis (OR 1.852, 95% CI 1.100-3.117, p=0.02) were the only significant predictors of hypotension. None of the induction agents, including propofol, were significantly associated with hypotension in patients with or without presumed sepsis. CONCLUSIONS: In critically ill burn patients undergoing urgent endotracheal intubation, specific induction agents, including propofol, were not associated with clinically significant hypotension. Presumed sepsis and %TBSA were the most important risk factors.

TRAP abortion laws and partisan political party control of state government.

Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (or TRAP) laws impose medically unnecessary and burdensome regulations solely on abortion providers in order to make abortion services more expensive and difficult to obtain. Using event history analysis, this article examines the determinants of the enactment of a TRAP law by states over the period 1974­2008. The empirical results find that Republican institutional control of a state's legislative/executive branches is positively associated with a state enacting a TRAP law, while Democratic institutional control is negatively associated with a state enacting a TRAP law. The percentage of a state's population that is Catholic, public anti-abortion attitudes, state political ideology, and the abortion rate in a state are statistically insignificant predictors of a state enacting a TRAP law. The empirical results are consistent with the hypothesis that abortion is a redistributive issue and not a morality issue.

Neurosarcoidosis of the conus medullaris and cauda equina.

An uncommon case of neurosarcoidosis of the conus medullaris and cauda equina is described in a 24-year-old man with a 4-year history of urological symptoms and rash. Chest X-ray and biopsy confirmed sarcoidosis and MRI diagnosed conus medullaris involvement.