Alex Tatara, MD PhD

@amtatara.bsky.social

Physician scientist engaged in biomaterials, immunoengineering, and device-related infection. Assistant prof at UTSW.

My team’s new article is out! For male basic trainees who had ICD-10 code for UTI or dysuria: ~50% had a sexual history documented ~70% had a gc/ct test ordered, -Ultimate diagnosis of gc/ct >>> uti -Few had any STI testing in 3 years following dysuria #IDSky academic.oup.com/milmed/advan...

Testing for Sexually Transmitted Infections in Symptomatic Male Military Trainees

AbstractIntroduction. A high burden of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) exists among trainees entering United States Air Force Basic Military Trainin

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Dr Steven Tong presents data on Penicillin vs (Flu)Cloxacillin for penicillin sensitive S.aureus. 1. Penicillin is non-inferior. 2. Rate of AKI roughly half in Penicillin group. 3. More pts in Penicillin group changed Rx - why? #ESCMIDGlobal

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🔍 Study on 47 kids with musculoskeletal infections vs. 48 Lyme & 49 inflammatory arthritis. A 3-cytokine panel (IL-6, IL-17A, CSF-1) had AUC 0.90, outperforming 5 common biomarkers (P < .05). #idsky

Utility of Cytokine Biomarkers for the Diagnosis of Pediatric Pyogenic Musculoskeletal Infections

Pyogenic musculoskeletal infections, such as septic arthritis and osteomyelitis, require prompt recognition and treatment but can be challenging to distinguish from Lyme or inflammatory arthritis. Our goal was to identify cytokine biomarkers of musculoskeletal infections.MethodsUsing 2 multicenter prospective cohorts of children undergoing emergency department evaluation for musculoskeletal infection, we selected children ≤21 years of age with a musculoskeletal infection (cases) matched by age and sex to children with Lyme and inflammatory arthritis (controls). We performed a 45-cytokine/chemokine panel using the Olink proximity extension assay platform and used receiver operator curve analysis to evaluate the discriminative ability of each cytokine. Using forward stepwise logistic regression, we derived a 3-cytokine panel and compared the accuracy with 5 commonly available plasma biomarkers.ResultsWe included 47 children with musculoskeletal infection, 48 with Lyme arthritis, and 49 with inflammatory arthritis. Interleukin-6 had the highest accuracy for musculoskeletal infection (area under the curve [AUC], 0.84; 95% CI, 0.77–0.91). A 3-cytokine biosignature panel (interleukin-6, interleukin-17A, and colony stimulating factor–1) had the highest overall accuracy (AUC, 0.90; 95% CI, 0.84–0.96) and performed better than 5 common plasma biomarkers (white blood cell count, absolute neutrophil count, C-reactive protein, erythrocyte sedimentation rate, and procalcitonin; P < .05 for all comparisons).ConclusionsPlasma cytokines can distinguish musculoskeletal infections from Lyme or inflammatory arthritis and may assist initial decision-making for children undergoing evaluation for musculoskeletal infection.

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It's that time of year again. Here are my top 10 ID papers of 2024 1. My opinion 2. Practice changing, paradigm-shifting or dogma challenging 3. Not COVID 4. Alphabetical order by first author 5. CoI for 4 and 5 (I am an author) Summary slide here, details in thread #IDSky #Top10IDpapers

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Led by Chih-Ming Tsai + Irshad Hasham, a fascinating new JCI paper from the George Liu Lab at UCSD Pediatrics shows that in mice who have previous Staphylococcus aureus (SA) exposure, B cells secrete abundant IL-10 when challenged with the SA antigens for a second time (in a vaccine) Thread🧵 1 of 2

Staph Vaccines Keep Failing and Scientists Finally Know Why

Researchers at UC San Diego have identified a key mechanism by which Staphylococcus aureus evades the immune response, leading to the failure of numerous vaccine trials. The bacteria triggers an overp...

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