Invasive infections are a common source of morbidity and mortality in children with cancer. The risk for infectious complications during therapy for cancer is inversely related to age: children with cancer are more commonly affected by infection compared with adult…
Infections are one of the most frequent serious complications of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). The risk of infections corresponds to the complex interplay between organ dysfunction or tissue damage, exposure to pathogens, virulence of those pathogens, and the net…
Balanced immunosuppression is essential to ensure acceptance of a solid organ transplant and an overall successful patient outcome. The fundamental purpose of immunosuppression is to modulate the immune system’s ability to recognize the transplanted organ. However, an overly suppressed immune…
Introduction Opioid use disorder (OUD) can lead to injection drug use, which is an important risk factor for blood-borne viruses such as HIV and hepatitis C virus (HCV), among other infections. Indeed, the burden of blood-borne viruses among people who…
Introduction All societies that have had access to psychoactive drugs have used them. There are multiple positive aspects of psychoactive drug use, from creating positive mood states, to stress and pain relief, to increasing social bonding, to simple preservation of…
HIV prevention in people who inject drugs According to the CDC, 9% of incident HIV cases in the United States are directly attributable to injection drug use [ ]. Among people who inject drugs (PWID), the risk for HIV and…
Introduction Infections are a common cause of hospitalization for patients with opioid use disorders (OUDs). In 2012, there were 530,000 OUD-related hospitalizations with a total estimated healthcare cost of $15 billion [ ], approximately 6.500 of those admissions were related…
Infectious disease (ID) physicians have long treated the common complications of opioid use disorder (OUD) and injection drug use. Such complications encountered in patients with OUD include HIV, viral hepatitis (HBV, HCV), tuberculosis, skin and soft tissue infections (cellulitis, abscesses,…
Opioid use disorder and endocarditis The increasing use of opioids over the past decade has resulted in a crisis of overdose and death in the United States that has also been accompanied by an increase in infectious complications related to…
Introduction Chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection affects over 240 million individuals worldwide [ ]. Detection of the disease is dependent on active surveillance and testing by healthcare providers. Due to the high risk of transmission, the Center for Disease…