Background: Ceftriaxone or cefotaxime has been the drug of choice to treat spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP) for many years, but little is known about microbiology, resistance rate to cephalosporines, and clinical outcomes over the last few decades. Our study aimed to describe the clinical and microbiological characteristics of culture-positive SBP at University of Kentucky Hospital. [...]

Background: Sepsis is one of the most common causes for adult emergency department admissions and carries high morbidity and mortality. Appropriate and timely administration of intravenous (IV) antibiotics is one of the cornerstones of initial management of sepsis. Indeed, mortality has been shown to increase by 7-14% for each hour of delay in antibiotic administration. [...]

Background: Over 5 million people in the United States are diagnosed with heart failure (HF) and many continue to be hospitalized for exacerbations of this disease. An estimated 20 million Americans have been diagnosed with some form of thyroid disease. Thyroid hormones significantly impact cardiac muscle functions and elevated levels of thyroxine (T4), as seen [...]

Background: With the rising prevalence of persons who inject drugs, we are increasingly confronted with the challenge of managing them in the hospital setting as they are at an increased risk of leaving the hospital prematurely. There is limited data on the factors associated with leaving against medical advice (AMA) in persons who inject drugs [...]

Background: The obesity paradox describes a counterintuitive observation of improved outcomes in patients with obesity. Analysis of the association among overweight/obesity and leading causes of inpatient mortality in a systemic manner has not been conducted. Methods: We used STATA (StataCorp, College Station, Texas) to analyze the 2016 National Inpatient Sample (NIS). We recognized patients with [...]

Background: Low serum concentrations of tetracycline antibiotics may raise concerns on their efficacy in patients with secondary bacteremia, especially in comorbid patients and in those with higher acuity of illness. Omadacycline (OMC), an aminomethylcycline antibiotic, showed non-inferiority to linezolid (LZD) in two acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections (ABSSSI) studies (Omadacycline in Acute Skin [...]

Background: The risk for serious infections and poor treatment outcomes is reported to be higher in patients with diabetes compared to the general population. Omadacycline (OMC) is an intravenous (IV) and oral aminomethylcycline antibiotic approved in the US to treat acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections (ABSSSI) and community-acquired bacterial pneumonia (CABP) in adults. [...]

Background: Palliative care in seriously ill patients has been shown in some studies to improve satisfaction, symptoms, inpatient mortality rates, healthcare utilization and cost. While inpatient palliative care has been shown to improve symptoms and quality of life measures, the literature on its association with 30-day readmissions have been mixed for heart failure hospitalizations. We [...]

Background: Sepsis is a leading cause of hospital death and readmission (1-2). Prior work has suggested that early, adequate intravenous fluid (IVF) administration during sepsis care is associated with lower mortality, even among those at risk for fluid overload (including patients with chronic kidney disease [CKD] or heart failure [HF]) (3). At the same time, [...]

Background: Acute decompensated heart failure exacerbation is the leading cause of hospitalization in the United States. It was associated with total medical costs of more than $30 billion in 2012 with projections estimating around $70 billion in costs by 2030. Currently, six million people in the U.S. have heart failure, with a little over half [...]