Spinal epidural abscess. Optimizing patient care.

The medical literature regarding spinal epidural abscess has two common threads: reports of poor prognosis and appeals for rapid treatment. Spinal epidural abscess is a difficult diagnosis to make because of its rarity--many physicians will never see a case during their careers. Among all patients admitted to hospitals, the incidence is approximately one to two cases per 10,000. Only increased awareness and swift management of spinal epidural abscess will improve outcome. Our goal through this report is to enhance the recognition and treatment of spinal epidural abscess. We present 28 new cases of spinal epidural abscess, giving special attention to the peculiarities of the disease; we compile and analyze comprehensive data from cases from literature; and finally, we present the results of 16 retrospective personal interviews of infected patients.

Comparison of fluconazole and amphotericin B for treatment of disseminated candidiasis and endophthalmitis in rabbits.

We compared the efficacy of intravenous fluconazole (80 mg/kg of body weight per day) with that of amphotericin B (1 mg/kg/day) for the long-term treatment of endophthalmitis in rabbits with disseminated candidiasis. After 17 days of therapy, fluconazole decreased the fungal colony counts of the choroid-retinas significantly more than did the saline control (P less than 0.05); however, after 24 days of fluconazole therapy, this treatment effect was lost and fluconazole was no more effective than saline. In contrast, treatment for 24 days with amphotericin B reduced the vitreous and choroid-retina fungal colony counts significantly more than either fluconazole or saline (P less than 0.05 for both treatment groups). After 17 days of therapy, indirect ophthalmoscopy revealed less severe eye involvement in both antifungal treatment groups than in saline controls; however, this difference reached statistical significance only for the amphotericin B-treated rabbits (P less than 0.05). Also, there was a trend towards worsening eye lesions, as seen by indirect ophthalmoscopy, in the fluconazole-treated rabbits after 24 days of therapy, which roughly paralleled the quantitative culture results. Despite the presence of negative choroid-retina cultures, some rabbits in all treatment groups had persistently visible eye lesions, indicating that ophthalmoscopic resolution of Candida endophthalmitis may lag behind lesion sterilization. Amphotericin B was superior to fluconazole in the treatment of Candida endophthalmitis in this model.

Candidiasis.

C. albicans and its related species have become major nosocomial causes of morbidity and mortality in the immunocompromised and in other severely ill patients. Diagnosis of the severe forms of the disease remains difficult and depends on the basis of a composite of clinical findings. Treatment for most forms of severe Candida infections remains amphotericin B despite its toxicities. Until more effective prevention of the disease becomes feasible, Candida infections are likely to increase in frequency as major iatrogenic problems.