HIV and ID Observations

June 24th, 2012

ID Learning Unit — Choosing a Quinolone

We love quinolones on medical services, and it’s easy to understand why. Advantages: Ideal spectrum for several common infections, including community-acquired pneumonia, UTIs, and more complex infections when combined with other drugs Great oral absorption Few drug-drug interactions Once- or twice-daily dosing Generally well tolerated Reasonable cost But how do you choose between them? Below, in […]

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June 18th, 2012

ID Learning Unit — Serologic Tests for Syphilis

Diagnosing syphilis is tricky for lots of reasons, including: The protean disease manifestations, many of which were best described in older medical literature — and hence not known to people who don’t read words on paper (vs a screen) very often. You can’t visualize the bug (Treponema pallidum), unless you happen to have a darkfield microscope […]

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June 15th, 2012

ID Learning Unit — The D Test

I suppose it’s not surprising that we’d follow-up the Etest with the D test, though perhaps if I were being alphabetical, the order would have been reversed. The D test is important, because it screens for a form of clindamycin resistance in MRSA that might otherwise not be detected — the “inducible” kind, which can be […]

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June 12th, 2012

ID Learning Unit — The Etest

Every year I attend on the general medical service, so it gives me a chance to work directly with the medical residents — and to brush up on my non-ID-related Internal Medicine. In exchange for what they teach me, each day on rounds I try to tell them about at least one ID-related thing that they […]

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June 6th, 2012

A Fun Internet Poll for ID Nerds

Over on Medscape, one of my ID heroes, John Bartlett, has a new series called, “The Medscape Awards in Infectious Diseases” and it looks like a winner. Here’s how it works: The Medscape Awards in Infectious Diseases is a new series that will honor the greatest achievements in the field of infectious diseases during 1980-2012. John G. […]

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January 18th, 2012

ID Case Conference Discussant Types

We specialists in Infectious Diseases love case conferences — especially those where the case is presented as an “unknown”, and we try to figure out the diagnosis from the history. I suppose this isn’t very surprising, since ID cases in general are already among the most interesting in all of medicine. Those that are case-conference-worthy are […]

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December 8th, 2011

Big TB Prevention Study Important, Highly Relevant — Even Here

As I’ve noted before, tuberculosis is disappearing from the United States — which means that the bulk of cutting-edge research in TB (both clinical and basic science) has little relevance to US-based practitioners. But over in NEJM, a much-anticipated TB study is published today that is highly relevant: We conducted an open-label, randomized noninferiority trial comparing 3 […]

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April 5th, 2011

Scamming Academic Journals

Academic scams are not just limited to meetings. Every so often, I receive an e-mail that goes something like this: Dear Dr. Sax, The journal Contemporary Organic Biosynthesis [journal name made up] covers all the latest and outstanding developments in organic biosynthesis studies. It is one of the leading journals for expert reviews in the field. Please visit […]

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March 8th, 2011

Really Rapid Review of CROI 2011 — and No CROI 2012 Dates

With CROI 2011 now officially over, I offer below the following Really Rapid Review™ for ID/HIV Specialists with limited time — or for those who said they went to the conference but spent the entire week shopping in the Prudential Mall and eating at Legal Seafood: Lots on PrEP.  Bottom line — it works if you take […]

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December 13th, 2010

My (Second) Favorite Journal Switches Publishers

I absolutely love the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. It’s easily my second-favorite journal. (Can you guess my favorite? Perhaps this new “About this blog” section will give you a hint.) But back to CID — here’s why I love it: Great content.  Seems every issue has fascinating studies, usually of great clinical relevance to the field of Infectious […]

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