Infectious Disease

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A 76-year-old woman presents with chest pain-which she describes as“muscle tightness”- that began when she awoke in the morning. Thepain is constant, exacerbated by deep inspiration, and accompanied by asubjective sense of slight dyspnea; she rates its severity as 3 on a scale of1 to 10. She denies pain radiation, nausea, diaphoresis, palpitations, andlight-headedness. Her only cardiac risk factors are hypertension and a distanthistory of smoking.

MONTREAL -- Early reports about promising investigational compounds and new insights into the effect of diet on the gut were highlights in gastroenterology during the year.

BALTIMORE -- Potentially lethal ICU blood-stream infections were cut by as much as 66% through the use of inexpensive common-sense measures such as hand-washing, removal of unneeded catheters, and the use of safer catheter sites, researchers reported.

The Year in HIV/AIDS

TORONTO, Dec. 27 - Researchers and clinicians descended en masse on this city this year for the World AIDS Conference -- the first time in a decade the meeting has been held in North America.

IRVINE, Calif.-- Methamphetamine users may develop carotid artery dissections, leading to a severe stroke, an effect also seen in cocaine users, according to researchers here.

ATLANTA -- Tuberculosis remained at relatively low rates in the U.S., despite more reported cases of multi-drug resistant TB (MDR TB). But a new alarm was sounded in 2006 ? extensively drug resistant TB (XTR TB).

ROCKVILLE, Md. -- Against the background of the growing incidence of type 2 diabetes and obesity in the United States came news this year about the first new insulin delivery system in 80 years, as well as new categories of drugs for type 2 disease.

BALTIMORE -- An investigational approach to sifting infectious prions from donated blood could help quell fears, focused in Britain, about the possible spread by transfusion of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), researchers here reported.

HOUSTON -- After a plaque of scary headlines, the news of a potential pandemic avian flu has dropped off the front pages. But virologists believe the threat is waiting in the wings.

ST. LOUIS -- Bacteria in the gut may be arbiters of weight loss or gain, according to a revolutionary theory proposed by researchers here. They suggested that manipulation of intestinal microbes might be used one day to treat obesity.

OAKLAND, Calif. -- HIV-infected patients having surgery were more likely to develop post-op pneumonia or to die within 12 months than matched non-infected patients, researchers here reported.

OAKLAND, Calif. -- HIV-infected patients having surgery were more likely to develop post-op pneumonia or to die within 12 months than matched non-infected patients, researchers here reported.

SYDNEY, Australia -- Kidney transplantation is associated with a significant increase in risk of cancer, including a tripling of the risk for cancer at 18 sites, researchers here reported.

SAN ANTONIO -- Evidence is mounting that the so-called human mammary tumor virus (HMTV) can actually causes breast cancer, a New York researcher said.

SAN ANTONIO -- Evidence is mounting that the so-called human mammary tumor virus (HMTV) can actually causes breast cancer, a New York researcher said.

ROCKVILLE, Md. -- Two FDA advisory committees agreed today that the antibiotic Ketek (telithromycin) should be limited to second-line therapy for community-acquired pneumonia, and that the drug should have black box warning added to its label.

GENEVA, Switzerland -- Rhinoviruses appeared to reach out beyond the upper respiratory tract to cause progressive respiratory and graft dysfunction that killed two of 11 lung transplant recipients, reported researchers here.

GENEVA, Switzerland -- Rhinoviruses appeared to reach out beyond the upper respiratory tract to cause progressive respiratory and graft dysfunction that killed two of 11 lung transplant recipients, reported researchers here.