Microbiology Flashcards
What is the treatment for a Staphylococcus epidermidis infection?
Vancomycin.
What is the treatment for a Staphylococcus aureus infection?
Flucloxacillin.
What is the treatment for an infection of gram-negative microorganisms?
Doxycycline/clindamycin.
What is osteomyelitis?
Inflammation of bone and medullary cavity, usually located in one of the long bones.
How is osteomyelitis in patients classified?
By time - acute/chronic.
By spread - contiguous/haematogenous.
Host status - presence of vascular insufficiency, host susceptibility.
What is contiguous spread of an organism?
Spread is from a site adjacent to where you think the infection started e.g. diabetic with superficial ulcer and the infection from the ulcer spreads down into the bone.
What is haematogenous spread of an organism?
Secondary spread of infection from blood to the bone.
E.g. drugs user gets a bacteraemia and the infection spreads to the bone from elsewhere in the body from the primary infection site.
How can you get indirect and direct confirmation of infection in the bone?
Indirect - scan.
Direct - sample from the bone itself.
What is the best clinical indicator that there may be osteomyelitis from an open wound?
If you can see tendon/bone or you can probe the bone the open wound.
When is osteomyelitis a medical emergency?
If there is sepsis or the patient is clinically unstable.
You also give antimicrobials before culturing if it is a soft tissue infection.
What is the treatment plan for osteomyelitis?
No empiric antibiotics (guessing what the infection is and prescribing antibiotics without confirmed cultures).
Culture the bone first, await results and prescribe based on those results.
Acute/chronic osteomyelitis is not a medical emergency.
AND surgical debridement of pus, dead bone.
Why should a patient have 6 weeks of antibiotic therapy for osteomyelitis?
It takes 6 weeks for debrided bone to be covered by vascularised soft tissue.
When is coagulase negative staphylococcus (staph. epidermidis) likely to cause infection in the body?
If there are metal or plastic prosthesis surgically implanted into the body.
What spread is likely to cause vertebral osteomyelitis?
Haematogenous.
How best should you culture for osteomyelitis?
Percutaneous aspirate or deep surgical cultures, NOT swabbing top of a sinus.
Who is likely to get osteomyelitis?
Open fractures.
Diabetes/vascular insufficiency.
Haematogenous osteomyelitis.
Vertebral osteomyelitis (specific case of haematogenous spread).
Prosthetic joint infection.
Specific hosts and pathogens.
What is the clinical clue that someone has developed osteomyelitis following an open fracture?
Non-union and poor wound healing.
What microorganism tends to be causative in open fracture osteomyelitis?
Staph. aureus.
Gram-negative bacteria.
What microorganism tends to be causative in diabetic/vascular insufficiency osteomyelitis?
Polymicrobial (often staph. aureus).