Scholars@Duke
Aimee Kirsch Zaas

Aimee Kirsch Zaas

Professor of Medicine
Medicine, Infectious Diseases
aimee.zaas@duke.edu
Duke Box 3182, DUMC, Durham, NC 27710
2301 Erwin Rd, Box 3182, Durham, NC 27710

Selected Publications

Championing Civility in the Clinical Learning Environment: Evaluation of a Novel Training Program.

Journal Article Acad Med · September 6, 2024 PROBLEM: Incivility in the health care workplace is increasing and negatively impacts everyone in the environment, including health care team members and the patients and families they serve. This study examined the efficacy and impact of Civility Champion ... Full text Link to item Cite

Predictive signature of murine and human host response to typical and atypical pneumonia.

Journal Article BMJ Open Respir Res · August 3, 2024 BACKGROUND: Pneumonia due to typical bacterial, atypical bacterial and viral pathogens can be difficult to clinically differentiate. Host response-based diagnostics are emerging as a complementary diagnostic strategy to pathogen detection. METHODS: We used ... Full text Link to item Cite

Residency Program Responses to Early COVID-19 Surges Highlight Tension as to Whether Residents Are Learners or Essential Workers.

Journal Article Acad Med · November 1, 2022 PURPOSE: To quantify the extent to which internal medicine (IM) residents provided care for patients with COVID-19 and examine characteristics of residency programs with or without plans (at some point) to exclude residents from COVID-19 care during the fi ... Full text Link to item Cite

Training in Safe Opioid Prescribing and Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder in Internal Medicine Residencies: a National Survey of Program Directors.

Journal Article J Gen Intern Med · August 2022 BACKGROUND: Training future clinicians in safe opioid prescribing (SOP) and treatment of opioid use disorder (OUD) is critical to address the opioid epidemic. The Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education requires all programs to provide instruct ... Full text Link to item Cite

Transcriptional Profiles Elucidate Differential Host Responses to Infection with Cryptococcus neoformans and Cryptococcus gattii.

Journal Article J Fungi (Basel) · April 22, 2022 Many aspects of the host response to invasive cryptococcal infections remain poorly understood. In order to explore the pathobiology of infection with common clinical strains, we infected BALB/cJ mice with Cryptococcus neoformans, Cryptococcus gattii, or s ... Full text Link to item Cite

Prevalence and Sources of Mistreatment Experienced by Internal Medicine Residents.

Journal Article JAMA Intern Med · April 1, 2022 This survey study examines the prevalence and sources of mistreatment toward internal medicine residents. ... Full text Link to item Cite

Internal Medicine Residency Program Director Support and Burnout During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Results of a National Survey.

Journal Article J Grad Med Educ · April 2022 BACKGROUND: Burnout is common among physicians and physician leaders, including residency program directors (PDs). The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and other stressors in 2020 on PDs is unknown. OBJECTIVE: To measure the prevalence of burnout among int ... Full text Link to item Cite

Focusing on Diversity: A Regional Internal Medicine Residency Viewpoint on Underrepresented Minority Support, Retention, and Mentoring.

Journal Article J Grad Med Educ · April 2021 BACKGROUND: While the overall percentage of residents who withdraw (2.7%) or take extended leave (1.0%) are low, subgroup analysis has found that minority physicians are approximately 30% more likely to withdraw from residency than their white counterparts ... Full text Link to item Cite

Does Increased Schedule Flexibility Lead to Change? A National Survey of Program Directors on 2017 Work Hours Requirements.

Journal Article J Gen Intern Med · November 2020 BACKGROUND: The learning and working environment for resident physicians shifted dramatically over the past two decades, with increased focus on work hours, resident wellness, and patient safety. Following two multi-center randomized trials comparing 16-h ... Full text Link to item Cite

The Nephrology Immersion Classroom for Internal Medicine Residents.

Journal Article Kidney360 · October 29, 2020 BACKGROUND: In graduate medical education (GME), there are many barriers to achieving a personalized learning process with standardized learning outcomes. One way to support this is through mobile-friendly digital blackboard videos. We sought to measure th ... Full text Link to item Cite

A transcriptional signature accurately identifies Aspergillus Infection across healthy and immunosuppressed states.

Journal Article Transl Res · May 2020 Invasive aspergillosis (IA) is a major cause of critical illness in immunocompromised (IC) patients. However, current fungal tests are limited. Disease-specific gene expression patterns in circulating host cells show promise as novel diagnostics, however i ... Full text Link to item Cite

Nasal microbiota exhibit neither reproducible nor orderly dynamics following rhinoviral infection

Journal Article · April 17, 2020 ABSTRACTBackgroundHow human-associated microbial communities resist and respond to perturbations remains incompletely understood. Viral challenge provides one opportunity to test how human ... Full text Cite

Relationship Between Institutional Investment in High-Value Care (HVC) Performance Improvement and Internal Medicine Residents' Perceptions of HVC Training.

Journal Article Acad Med · October 2018 PURPOSE: To measure the association between institutional investment in high-value care (HVC) performance improvement and resident HVC experiences. METHOD: The authors analyzed data from two 2014 surveys assessing institutions' investments in HVC performan ... Full text Link to item Cite

Hot in the Tropics.

Journal Article J Hosp Med · June 2017 Full text Link to item Cite

Improving Timely Resident Follow-Up and Communication of Results in Ambulatory Clinics Utilizing a Web-Based Audit and Feedback Module.

Journal Article J Grad Med Educ · April 2017 BACKGROUND: Failure to follow up and communicate test results to patients in outpatient settings may lead to diagnostic and therapeutic delays. Residents are less likely than attending physicians to report results to patients, and may face additional barri ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Diabetes Quality of Care Before and After Implementation of a Resident Clinic Practice Partnership System.

Journal Article Am J Med Qual · 2017 Deficiencies in resident diabetes care quality may relate to continuity clinic design. This retrospective analysis compared diabetes care processes and outcomes within a traditional resident continuity clinic structure (2005) and after the implementation o ... Full text Link to item Cite

The Burden of Burnout.

Journal Article Am J Med Qual · 2017 This study sought to determine burnout prevalence and factors associated with burnout in internal medicine residents after introduction of the 2011 ACGME duty hour rules. Burnout was evaluated using an anonymized, abbreviated version of the Maslach Burnout ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Patients, Nurses, and Physicians Working Together to Develop a Discharge Entrustable Professional Activity Assessment Tool.

Journal Article Acad Med · October 2016 PROBLEM: The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education milestones were written by physicians and thus may not reflect all the behaviors necessary for physicians to optimize their performance as a key member of an interprofessional team. APPROACH ... Full text Link to item Cite

What motivates residents to teach? The Attitudes in Clinical Teaching study.

Journal Article Med Educ · July 2016 CONTEXT: Graduate medical trainees have a critical role in the teaching of other trainees. Improving their teaching requires an understanding of their attitudes towards teaching and their motivation to teach. Both have been incompletely explored in this po ... Full text Link to item Cite

Doctor Who? A Quality Improvement Project to Assess and Improve Patients' Knowledge of Their Inpatient Physicians.

Journal Article J Grad Med Educ · May 2016 Background Patient-physician communication is an integral part of high-quality patient care and an expectation of the Clinical Learning Environment Review program. Objective This quality improvement initiative evaluated the impact of an educational audit a ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

An individualized predictor of health and disease using paired reference and target samples.

Journal Article BMC Bioinformatics · January 22, 2016 BACKGROUND: Consider the problem of designing a panel of complex biomarkers to predict a patient's health or disease state when one can pair his or her current test sample, called a target sample, with the patient's previously acquired healthy sample, call ... Full text Link to item Cite

Host gene expression classifiers diagnose acute respiratory illness etiology.

Journal Article Sci Transl Med · January 20, 2016 Acute respiratory infections caused by bacterial or viral pathogens are among the most common reasons for seeking medical care. Despite improvements in pathogen-based diagnostics, most patients receive inappropriate antibiotics. Host response biomarkers of ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

A Genomic Signature of Influenza Infection Shows Potential for Presymptomatic Detection, Guiding Early Therapy, and Monitoring Clinical Responses.

Journal Article Open Forum Infect Dis · January 2016 Early, presymptomatic intervention with oseltamivir (corresponding to the onset of a published host-based genomic signature of influenza infection) resulted in decreased overall influenza symptoms (aggregate symptom scores of 23.5 vs 46.3), more rapid reso ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Development and Refinement of a Learning Health Systems Training Program.

Journal Article EGEMS (Wash DC) · 2016 CONTEXT: In the emerging Learning Health System (LHS), the application and generation of medical knowledge are a natural outgrowth of patient care. Achieving this ideal requires a physician workforce adept in information systems, quality improvement method ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Gene Expression Profiles Link Respiratory Viral Infection, Platelet Response to Aspirin, and Acute Myocardial Infarction.

Journal Article PLoS One · 2015 BACKGROUND: Influenza infection is associated with myocardial infarction (MI), suggesting that respiratory viral infection may induce biologic pathways that contribute to MI. We tested the hypotheses that 1) a validated blood gene expression signature of r ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

The current epidemiology and clinical decisions surrounding acute respiratory infections.

Journal Article Trends Mol Med · October 2014 Acute respiratory infection (ARI) is a common diagnosis in outpatient and emergent care settings. Currently available diagnostics are limited, creating uncertainty in the use of antibacterial, antiviral, or supportive care. Up to 72% of ambulatory care pat ... Full text Link to item Cite

A Novel Approach to Practice-Based Learning and Improvement Using a Web-Based Audit and Feedback Module.

Journal Article J Grad Med Educ · September 2014 BACKGROUND: Systematically engaging residents in large programs in quality improvement (QI) is challenging. OBJECTIVE: To coordinate a shared QI project in a large residency program using an online tool. METHODS: A web-based QI tool guided residents throug ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Development of a novel preclinical model of pneumococcal pneumonia in nonhuman primates.

Journal Article Am J Respir Cell Mol Biol · May 2014 Pneumococcal pneumonia is a leading cause of bacterial infection and death worldwide. Current diagnostic tests for detecting Streptococcus pneumoniae can be unreliable and can mislead clinical decision-making and treatment. To address this concern, we deve ... Full text Link to item Cite

Bayesian modeling of temporal properties of infectious disease in a college student population

Journal Article Journal of Applied Statistics · January 1, 2014 A Bayesian statistical model is developed for analysis of the time-evolving properties of infectious disease, with a particular focus on viruses. The model employs a latent semi-Markovian state process, and the state-transition statistics are driven by thr ... Full text Cite

Longitudinal analysis of leukocyte differentials in peripheral blood of patients with acute respiratory viral infections.

Journal Article J Clin Virol · December 2013 BACKGROUND: Leukocyte counts and differentials are commonly acquired in patients with suspected respiratory viral infections and may contribute diagnostic information. However, most published work is limited to a single timepoint at initial presentation to ... Full text Link to item Cite

A host-based RT-PCR gene expression signature to identify acute respiratory viral infection.

Journal Article Sci Transl Med · September 18, 2013 Improved ways to diagnose acute respiratory viral infections could decrease inappropriate antibacterial use and serve as a vital triage mechanism in the event of a potential viral pandemic. Measurement of the host response to infection is an alternative to ... Full text Link to item Cite

Playing with curricular milestones in the educational sandbox: Q-sort results from an internal medicine educational collaborative.

Journal Article Acad Med · August 2013 PURPOSE: In competency-based medical education, the focus of assessment is on learner demonstration of predefined outcomes or competencies. One strategy being used in internal medicine (IM) is applying curricular milestones to assessment and reporting mile ... Full text Link to item Cite

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering molecular sentinel nanoprobes for viral infection diagnostics.

Journal Article Anal Chim Acta · July 5, 2013 In this paper, we describe a surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS)-based detection approach, referred to as "molecular sentinel" (MS) plasmonic nanoprobes, to detect an RNA target related to viral infection. The MS method is essentially a label-free tec ... Full text Link to item Cite

Unsupervised Bayesian linear unmixing of gene expression microarrays.

Journal Article BMC Bioinformatics · March 19, 2013 BACKGROUND: This paper introduces a new constrained model and the corresponding algorithm, called unsupervised Bayesian linear unmixing (uBLU), to identify biological signatures from high dimensional assays like gene expression microarrays. The basis for u ... Full text Link to item Cite

A host transcriptional signature for presymptomatic detection of infection in humans exposed to influenza H1N1 or H3N2.

Journal Article PLoS One · 2013 There is great potential for host-based gene expression analysis to impact the early diagnosis of infectious diseases. In particular, the influenza pandemic of 2009 highlighted the challenges and limitations of traditional pathogen-based testing for suspec ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Gene expression-based classifiers identify Staphylococcus aureus infection in mice and humans.

Journal Article PLoS One · 2013 Staphylococcus aureus causes a spectrum of human infection. Diagnostic delays and uncertainty lead to treatment delays and inappropriate antibiotic use. A growing literature suggests the host's inflammatory response to the pathogen represents a potential t ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Disseminated Mycobacterium immunogenum infection presenting with septic shock and skin lesions in a renal transplant recipient.

Journal Article Transpl Infect Dis · August 2012 Mycobacterium immunogenum is a relatively new species within the Mycobacterium chelonae-Mycobacterium abscessus group of rapidly growing mycobacteria (RGM). M. immunogenum was first characterized in 2001 and, similar to other RGM, is an ubiquitous environm ... Full text Link to item Cite

β-D-glucan surveillance with preemptive anidulafungin for invasive candidiasis in intensive care unit patients: a randomized pilot study.

Journal Article PLoS One · 2012 BACKGROUND: Invasive candidiasis (IC) is a devastating disease. While prompt antifungal therapy improves outcomes, empiric treatment based on the presence of fever has little clinical impact. Β-D-Glucan (BDG) is a fungal cell wall component detectable in t ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

The Hsp90 co-chaperone Sgt1 governs Candida albicans morphogenesis and drug resistance.

Journal Article PLoS One · 2012 The molecular chaperone Hsp90 orchestrates regulatory circuitry governing fungal morphogenesis, biofilm development, drug resistance, and virulence. Hsp90 functions in concert with co-chaperones to regulate stability and activation of client proteins, many ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Next-generation computational genetic analysis: multiple complement alleles control survival after Candida albicans infection.

Journal Article Infect Immun · November 2011 Candida albicans is a fungal pathogen that causes severe disseminated infections that can be lethal in immunocompromised patients. Genetic factors are known to alter the initial susceptibility to and severity of C. albicans infection. We developed a next-g ... Full text Link to item Cite

Temporal dynamics of host molecular responses differentiate symptomatic and asymptomatic influenza a infection.

Journal Article PLoS Genet · August 2011 Exposure to influenza viruses is necessary, but not sufficient, for healthy human hosts to develop symptomatic illness. The host response is an important determinant of disease progression. In order to delineate host molecular responses that differentiate ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Detection of viruses via statistical gene expression analysis.

Journal Article IEEE Trans Biomed Eng · March 2011 We develop a new bayesian construction of the elastic net (ENet), with variational bayesian analysis. This modeling framework is motivated by analysis of gene expression data for viruses, with a focus on H3N2 and H1N1 influenza, as well as Rhino virus and ... Full text Link to item Cite

Predicting Viral Infection From High-Dimensional Biomarker Trajectories.

Journal Article J Am Stat Assoc · January 1, 2011 There is often interest in predicting an individual's latent health status based on high-dimensional biomarkers that vary over time. Motivated by time-course gene expression array data that we have collected in two influenza challenge studies performed wit ... Full text Link to item Cite

Order-preserving factor analysis-application to longitudinal gene expression

Journal Article IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing · January 1, 2011 We present a novel factor analysis method that can be applied to the discovery of common factors shared among trajectories in multivariate time series data. These factors satisfy a precedence-ordering property: certain factors are recruited only after some ... Full text Cite

Order-preserving factor discovery from misaligned data

Journal Article 2010 IEEE Sensor Array and Multichannel Signal Processing Workshop, SAM 2010 · December 20, 2010 We present a factor analysis method that accounts for possible temporal misalignment of the factor loadings across the population of samples. Our main hypothesis is that the data contains a subset of variables with similar but delayed profiles obeying a co ... Full text Cite

Bayesian inference of the number of factors in gene-expression analysis: application to human virus challenge studies.

Journal Article BMC Bioinformatics · November 9, 2010 BACKGROUND: Nonparametric Bayesian techniques have been developed recently to extend the sophistication of factor models, allowing one to infer the number of appropriate factors from the observed data. We consider such techniques for sparse factor analysis ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

A stick-breaking construction of the beta process

Journal Article ICML 2010 - Proceedings, 27th International Conference on Machine Learning · September 17, 2010 We present and derive a new stick-breaking construction of the beta process. The construction is closely related to a special case of the stick-breaking construction of the Dirich-let process (Sethuraman, 1994) applied to the beta distribution. We derive a ... Cite

Two genes on A/J chromosome 18 are associated with susceptibility to Staphylococcus aureus infection by combined microarray and QTL analyses.

Journal Article PLoS Pathog · September 2, 2010 Although it has recently been shown that A/J mice are highly susceptible to Staphylococcus aureus sepsis as compared to C57BL/6J, the specific genes responsible for this differential phenotype are unknown. Using chromosome substitution strains (CSS), we fo ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

PKC signaling regulates drug resistance of the fungal pathogen Candida albicans via circuitry comprised of Mkc1, calcineurin, and Hsp90.

Journal Article PLoS Pathog · August 26, 2010 Fungal pathogens exploit diverse mechanisms to survive exposure to antifungal drugs. This poses concern given the limited number of clinically useful antifungals and the growing population of immunocompromised individuals vulnerable to life-threatening fun ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Breakthrough invasive candidiasis in patients on micafungin.

Journal Article J Clin Microbiol · July 2010 For Candida species, a bimodal wild-type MIC distribution for echinocandins exists, but resistance to echinocandins is rare. We characterized isolates from patients with invasive candidiasis (IC) breaking through >or=3 doses of micafungin therapy during th ... Full text Link to item Cite

Blood gene expression signatures predict invasive candidiasis.

Journal Article Sci Transl Med · March 3, 2010 Featured Publication Candidemia is the fourth most common bloodstream infection, with Candida albicans being the most common causative species. Success in reducing the associated morbidity and mortality has been limited by the inadequacy and time delay of currently available d ... Full text Link to item Cite

Gene expression signatures diagnose influenza and other symptomatic respiratory viral infections in humans.

Journal Article Cell Host Microbe · September 17, 2009 Featured Publication Acute respiratory infections (ARIs) are a common reason for seeking medical attention, and the threat of pandemic influenza will likely add to these numbers. Using human viral challenge studies with live rhinovirus, respiratory syncytial virus, and influen ... Full text Link to item Cite

Hsp90 governs echinocandin resistance in the pathogenic yeast Candida albicans via calcineurin.

Journal Article PLoS Pathog · July 2009 Candida albicans is the leading fungal pathogen of humans, causing life-threatening disease in immunocompromised individuals. Treatment of candidiasis is hampered by the limited number of antifungal drugs whose efficacy is compromised by host toxicity, fun ... Full text Link to item Cite

Hsp90 orchestrates temperature-dependent Candida albicans morphogenesis via Ras1-PKA signaling.

Journal Article Curr Biol · April 28, 2009 BACKGROUND: Hsp90 is an environmentally contingent molecular chaperone that influences the form and function of diverse regulators of cellular signaling. Hsp90 potentiates the evolution of fungal drug resistance by enabling crucial cellular stress response ... Full text Link to item Cite

Harnessing Hsp90 function as a powerful, broadly effective therapeutic strategy for fungal infectious disease.

Journal Article Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A · February 24, 2009 Invasive fungal infections are a leading cause of mortality among immunocompromised individuals. Treatment is notoriously difficult with the limited armamentarium of antifungal drugs, whose efficacy is compromised by host toxicity, a limited activity spect ... Full text Link to item Cite

Pulmonary cryptococcosis in patients without HIV infection: factors associated with disseminated disease.

Journal Article Eur J Clin Microbiol Infect Dis · October 2008 Cryptococcus neoformans is an uncommonly recognized cause of pneumonia in HIV-negative patients. Because of its propensity to disseminate to the meninges and other sites, a lumbar puncture is recommended for patients with pulmonary cryptococcosis, regardle ... Full text Link to item Cite

Echinocandins: a wealth of choice--how clinically different are they?

Journal Article Curr Opin Infect Dis · August 2008 PURPOSE OF REVIEW: The recent decade has been a 'golden age' for antifungal therapy. The introduction of a novel class of antifungals, the echinocandins, has revolutionized the therapy for invasive candidiasis, provided increasing options for antifungal pr ... Full text Link to item Cite

Plasminogen alleles influence susceptibility to invasive aspergillosis.

Journal Article PLoS Genet · June 20, 2008 Featured Publication Invasive aspergillosis (IA) is a common and life-threatening infection in immunocompromised individuals. A number of environmental and epidemiologic risk factors for developing IA have been identified. However, genetic factors that affect risk for developi ... Full text Link to item Cite

The effect of toll-like receptors and toll-like receptor genetics in human disease.

Journal Article Annu Rev Med · 2008 Toll-like receptors (TLRs) enable innate immune recognition of endogenous and exogenous prototypic ligands. They also orchestrate innate and adaptive immune response to infection, inflammation, and tissue injury. Given their significance in the immune resp ... Full text Link to item Cite

Cryptococcus neoformans is resistant to surfactant protein A mediated host defense mechanisms.

Journal Article PLoS One · December 26, 2007 Initiation of a protective immune response to infection by the pathogenic fungus Cryptococcus neoformans is mediated in part by host factors that promote interactions between immune cells and C. neoformans yeast. Surfactant protein A (SP-A) contributes pos ... Full text Link to item Cite

A single-center experience with ganciclovir-resistant cytomegalovirus in lung transplant recipients: treatment and outcome.

Journal Article J Heart Lung Transplant · December 2007 BACKGROUND: Cytomegalovirus (CMV) disease is a major cause of morbidity and mortality after lung transplantation despite ganciclovir prophylaxis. The emergence of ganciclovir-resistant CMV in lung transplant patients has been reported, although the optimal ... Full text Link to item Cite

Successful treatment of Ochroconis gallopavum infection in an immunocompetent host.

Journal Article Infection · October 2007 Ochroconis gallopavum, a dematiaceous fungus, is a rare cause disease in immunocompromised patients and epidemic encephalitis in poultry. We report the first case of active O. gallopavum pulmonary infection in an immunocompetent host with rapid and complet ... Full text Link to item Cite

Pulmonary fungal infections: Making the diagnosis

Journal Article Infections in Medicine · April 1, 2007 Since endemic mycoses can be contracted during a brief travel exposure, it is important to inquire about travel when a patient presents with symptoms of a respiratory infection. Most patients with blastomycosis present in the chronic phase, with cough, wei ... Cite

Comparative pharmacokinetics of voriconazole administered orally as either crushed or whole tablets.

Journal Article Antimicrob Agents Chemother · March 2007 Voriconazole is a triazole antifungal agent used to treat serious, invasive fungal infections including aspergillosis and candidemia. Limitations with existing formulations of voriconazole including restricted utility in patients with renal dysfunction (in ... Full text Link to item Cite

Clinical aspects of the genus aspergillus

Chapter · January 1, 2007 Aspergillosis refers to infection with any of the approximately 185 recognized species of the genus Aspergillus, of which only 20 are known to cause human disease. Most human disease is primarily caused by Aspergillus fumigatus, Aspergillus flavus, Aspergi ... Full text Cite

Peripheral blood gene expression profiling for cardiovascular disease assessment.

Journal Article Genomic Med · 2007 Whole blood gene expression profiling has the potential to be informative about dynamic changes in disease states and to provide information on underlying disease mechanisms. Having demonstrated proof of concept in animal models, a number of studies have n ... Full text Link to item Cite

Caspofungin for invasive candidiasis at a tertiary care medical center.

Journal Article Am J Med · November 2006 BACKGROUND: Caspofungin is emerging as first-line therapy for invasive candidiasis. Data on the use of caspofungin for treatment for invasive candidiasis are limited to clinical trials and case reports. We report a single-center experience with 104 consecu ... Full text Link to item Cite

Host genetics affect susceptibility to invasive aspergillosis.

Journal Article Med Mycol · September 1, 2006 Invasive aspergillosis is a common and life-threatening infection in immunocompromised individuals. Epidemiologic risk factors do not fully explain susceptibility to disease amongst at-risk persons. Recently, the contribution of host genetics and genetic p ... Full text Link to item Cite

Galactomannan and advances in fungal diagnostics

Journal Article Current Opinion in Organ Transplantation · December 1, 2005 Purpose of review: Invasive fungal infections remain a predominant cause of morbidity and mortality in the immunocompromised population. Fungal diagnostics, namely the Platelia Aspergillus enzyme immunoassay (Bio-Rad, Redmond, WA) and the Fungitell 1→-β-D- ... Full text Cite

A meta-analysis of medical versus surgical therapy for Candida endocarditis.

Journal Article J Infect · October 2005 OBJECTIVES: The optimal management of Candida infective endocarditis (IE) is unknown. METHODS: We reviewed all 879 cases of Candida IE reported from 1966-2002 in the peer-reviewed literature to better understand the role of medical and surgical therapies. ... Full text Link to item Cite

Innate immunity and the lung: defense at the interface between host and environment.

Journal Article Trends Cardiovasc Med · August 2005 The lung serves as a major interface between the host and the external environment. As such, numerous lines of defense protect the host from inhaled potential pathogens. A breach in pulmonary innate immunity can lead to deleterious outcomes, such as pneumo ... Full text Link to item Cite

Echinocandins: role in antifungal therapy, 2005.

Journal Article Expert Opin Pharmacother · August 2005 Novel therapies to treat invasive fungal infections have revolutionised the care of patients with candidiasis, aspergillosis and other less common fungal infections. Physicians in the twenty first century have access to safer versions of conventional drugs ... Full text Link to item Cite

Micafungin: the US perspective.

Journal Article Expert Rev Anti Infect Ther · April 2005 Invasive fungal infections cause considerable morbidity and mortality in nosocomial settings and amongst immunocompromised hosts. Invasive candidiasis and aspergillosis remain the most common invasive fungal infections, with Candida spp. constituting the f ... Full text Link to item Cite

New developments in the diagnosis and treatment of infections in lung transplant recipients.

Journal Article Respir Care Clin N Am · December 2004 Infections remain a serious and common problem in lung transplant recipients. Recent years have seen an explosion in the knowledge regarding this major cause of morbidity and mortality. Novel diagnostic and therapeutic techniques are revolutionizing the ap ... Full text Link to item Cite

Value of an inhalational model of invasive aspergillosis.

Journal Article Med Mycol · October 2004 Animal models of invasive aspergillosis have been used for virulence studies and antifungal efficacy evaluations but results have been inconsistent. In an attempt to reproduce human infection, many Aspergillus animal models have utilized a 'pulmonary route ... Full text Link to item Cite

Newer animal models of Aspergillus and Candida infections

Journal Article Drug Discovery Today: Disease Models · January 1, 2004 Fungal infections are increasing due to the growing number of immunocompromised patients. Because in vitro antifungal testing has limitations, animal models remain the essential tool to understand virulence and to optimize antifungal therapies. There are n ... Full text Cite

Risk of fungemia due to Rhodotorula and antifungal susceptibility testing of Rhodotorula isolates.

Journal Article J Clin Microbiol · November 2003 Rhodotorula infections occur among patients with immunosuppression and/or central venous catheters. Using standardized methods (NCCLS M27-A), we determined the antifungal susceptibilities of 10 Rhodotorula bloodstream infection isolates. Patient informatio ... Full text Link to item Cite

Pulmonary fungal infections: Making the diagnosis

Journal Article Journal of Respiratory Diseases · October 1, 2003 Since endemic mycoses can be contracted during a brief travel exposure, it is important to inquire about travel when a patient presents with symptoms of a respiratory infection. Most patients with blastomycosis present in the chronic phase, with cough, wei ... Cite

Cases from the Osler medical service at Johns Hopkins University.

Journal Article Am J Med · May 2003 A 56-year-old black woman with diabetes mellitus was admitted for hypoglycemia and confusion. Her past medical history included breast cancer, for which she had undergone a left lumpectomy and then mastectomy for in-breast recurrence. Her oral intake had d ... Full text Link to item Cite

Risk factors for pediatric ventriculoperitoneal shunt infection and predictors of infectious pathogens.

Journal Article Clin Infect Dis · April 1, 2003 Identification of risk factors for shunt infection and predictors of infectious pathogens may improve current methods to prevent and treat shunt infections. We reviewed data on 820 consecutive ventriculoperitoneal (VP) shunt placement procedures in 442 ped ... Full text Link to item Cite

Cases from the Osler Medical Service at Johns Hopkins University.

Journal Article Am J Med · February 1, 2003 A 37-year-old woman presented with increasing abdominal pain and jaundice. Six weeks before admission, she developed persistent diarrhea and jaundice of the skin. She also bruised easily, and her gums bled. In the subsequent weeks, her appetite decreased, ... Full text Link to item Cite

Risk factors for development of vancomycin-resistant enterococcal bloodstream infection in patients with cancer who are colonized with vancomycin-resistant enterococci.

Journal Article Clin Infect Dis · November 15, 2002 Vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VRE) is a common nosocomial isolate, especially among patients with cancer. VRE infections have substantial attributable mortality among patients with cancer. The purpose of this study was to identify risk factors ... Full text Link to item Cite

Large artery vasculitis following recombinant hepatitis B vaccination: 2 cases.

Journal Article J Rheumatol · May 2001 We describe 2 women who developed large artery vasculitis shortly after receiving recombinant hepatitis B vaccination. One patient developed Takayasu's arteritis, the other a vasculitis involving subclavian and renal arteries. Both developed renal failure. ... Link to item Cite

Doctor Who? A Study of Patient Provider Awareness

Conference Journal of Hospital Medicine Cite