Infection Control Update

By Anonymous

Urologie diseases cost Americans $11B a year Bladder, prostate and other urinary tract diseases cost Americans nearly $11 billion a year, according to a new report from the National Institutes of Health. Medicare’s share exceeded $5.4 billion. The five most expensive urologic problems, accounting for $9.1 billion, are, in descending order, urinary tract infections, kidney stones, prostate and bladder cancers and benign prostate enlargement, according to the authors of Urologic Diseases in America. The report was published online this spring and will be available in print and on CD. Five years in the making, “Urologic Diseases in America” stitches together a patchwork of reliable data, both new and previously published, revealing numbers of people affected, treatment patterns and economic cost. The top 10 diseases by cost include: Infection (Women & Men), $3.5 Billion; Kidney Stones, $2.1 Billion; Prostate Cancer, $1.3 Billion; Bladder Cancer, $1.1 Billion; BPH/Prostate Enlargement, $1.1 Billion; Urinary Incontinence, $463.1 Million; Kidney Cancer, $401.4 Million; Erectile Dysfunction, $327.6 Million; Prostatitis, $84.4 Million; and Interstitial Cystitis/PBS, $65,9 Million.

Maggots rid patients of MRSA

University of Manchester researchers are ridding diabetic patients of the superbug MRSA, by treating their foot ulcers with maggots. Professor Andrew Boulton and his team used green bottle fly larvae to treat 13 diabetic patients whose foot ulcers were contaminated with MRSA and found all but one were cured within a mean period of three weeks, much quicker than the 28-week duration for the conventional treatment. Professor Boulton published the results in the journal Diabetes Care.

Professor Boulton and his team, used the maggots to treat diabetic foot ulcers of patients when they found that many of their patients were suffering from MRSA-contaminated foot ulcers, with the rate doubling in a three year period, possibly due to overuse of antibiotics and the selection of broad rather than narrow-spectrum antibacterial agents. During the treatment period, no adverse reactions were reported and there was a reduction in sloughy necrotic tissue and an increase in healthy, growing tissue on removal of the last larval application.

Copyright KSR Publishing Jun 2007

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