Anhalt, John P.

Branhamella catarrhalis was isolated from sputum, tracheal secretions, and a nonhealing and infected thoracic surgical wound in a 59-year-old woman who had a history of a chronic, interstitial fibrosis and who had undergone an open lung biopsy procedure. The patient's upper respiratory tract was the likely source of the organism. To our knowledge, this is the first report of a wound infection caused by B. catarrhalis.

Identification of 18 mycobacterial species was performed by analysis of profiles obtained by using gas-liquid chromatography. Organisms were saponified in methanolic NaOH, and the reaction mixture was treated with BF 3 in methanol and extracted with a hexane-chloroform mixture. An identification scheme was developed from 128 stock strains and tested against a collection of 79 clinical isolates. By using gas-liquid chromatographic profiles alone, 58% of specimens were correctly identified to species level, and an additional 41% were correctly identified to a group of two or three organisms. Use in a clinical laboratory over a 2-month period proved chromatography to be as accurate as and more rapid than concurrent biochemical testing. Of 81 isolates tested, 64% were identified to species level by chromatography alone. An additional 35% were differentiated to the same groups of two or three organisms as found in our analysis of stock strains. These groups consisted of: Mycobacterium tuberculosis, M. bovis , and M. xenopi; M. avium complex, M. gastri , and M. scrofulaceum ; or M. fortuitum and M. chelonei. Identification to species level from these groups could usually be done by colonial morphology alone and could always be done by the addition of one selected biochemical test. This study demonstrated the practical application of gas-liquid chromatography in the identification of mycobacteria in a clinical laboratory. In particular, all strains of M. gordonae and M. kansasii were identified to species level. M. tuberculosis was definitively identified in 85% of cases. When it could not be definitely identified, the only alternatives were M. bovis and M. xenopi , both of which are rare causes of infection.

Padac test strips failed to detect the production of β-lactamase by 10 strains of penicillin-resistant staphylococci.

A modified procedure for the gas-chromatographic determination of 5-fluorocytosine in serum is described. A more volatile solvent mixture for extraction is used to reduce sample preparation time before chromatography. Comparison of values from assay of 12 serum samples by our method and the reference method gave a correlation coefficient of 0.99.

A procedure is described that uses high-pressure liquid chromatography for assay of gentamicin in serum. The technique involves extraction of gentamicin from serum by using a CM-Sephadex column and analysis by reverse-phase, ion-pair chromatography. Continuous-flow, post-column derivatization with o -phthaladehyde is used to form fluorescent products for detection. The possible scope of this method for analysis of other aminoglycoside antibiotics is illustrated by application to sisomicin and netilmicin.

Abstract We report a case of cerebral abscess due to Haemophilus paraphrophilus in a 51-year-old man who was otherwise healthy and had no cardiac abnormality. A source for the infection was not definitively identified; however, the patient had had dental manipulations 2 weeks before the onset of symptoms, and an oral source is probable. The patient was treated successfully with antibiotics after removal of the abscess. Bacteriological studies are discussed.