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Browsing by Author "Hinedi, Kareem"
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Item The calm before the storm: clinical observations of Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) patients(Taylor & Francis, 2018) Al-Tawfiq, Jaffar A.; Hinedi, Kareem; Medicine, School of MedicineBackground: Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infection emerged in 2012. The majority of cases occurred in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the disease carries a high case fatality rate. Methods: We present three MERS-CoV cases and highlight the salient clinical features and laboratory, and radiographic characteristics. Results: Although all nasopharyngeal samples were negative, MERS CoV infection was confirmed by reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction of the E gene (UpE) and open reading frame (ORF1b) on sputum samples. The Ct value of the ORF1 gene was 24.8–29.11. One patient had been on immune suppressive agent and two patients had diabetes mellitus. The average length of hospital stay was 10.6 days. Two patients received ribavirin and IFN-a2b in addition to supportive management. The clinical course for these patients started with a febrile period lasting five days, a reduction in fever was coinciding with increased respiratory rate and oxygen requirements. All patients were discharged home. None of the 50 contacts tested positive for MERS-CoV. Conclusion:Resolution of the fever was accompanied by an increase in oxygen requirements and respiratory rate also lasting several days. This was followed by resolution of all symptoms and return to normal.Item Empiric Antibiotic Therapy in the Treatment of Community-acquired Pneumonia in a General Hospital in Saudi Arabia(Wolters Kluwer, 2019-04) Al-Tawfiq, Jaffar A.; Momattin, Hisham; Hinedi, Kareem; Medicine, School of MedicineBackground: Guideline-based empiric antimicrobial therapy is recommended for the treatment of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). In this study, we evaluate the pattern of empiric antibiotics of CAP patients. Materials and Methods: Patients with CAP were retrieved from the health information unit using the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision. The electronic pharmacy database was used to retrieve prescribed antibiotics and the duration of therapy for each antibiotic. Results: A total of 1672 adult patients were included in the study and 868 (52%) were male. Of all the patients, 47 (2.8%) were admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU). The most frequently used antibiotics were levofloxacin (68.12%), ceftriaxone (37.7%), imipenem-cilastatin (32.5%), and azithromycin (20.6%). The mean days of therapy of each of these antibiotics were 3.2, 2.8, 4.4, and 2.9, respectively. A combination therapy of levofloxacin and imipenem-cilastatin was prescribed for 355 (21.8%) of non-ICU patients versus 20 (60.6%) of ICU patients (P = 0.0007). Imipenem-cilastatin was prescribed for 518 (31.8%) of non-ICU patients versus 25 (56.8%) of ICU patients (P = 0.0009). Levofloxacin was prescribed for 1106 (68%) of non-ICU patients versus 33 (75%) of ICU patients (P = 0.412). Ceftriaxone use decreased significantly from 40.9% in 2013 to 25.9% in 2016 (P = 0.034). In addition, levofloxacin use increased from 63.7% to 75% (P = 0.63). Conclusion: The most commonly used antibiotics were levofloxacin, ceftriaxone, imipenem-cilastatin, and azithromycin. The data call for further refinement and prospective audit of antibiotic use in CAP, especially in non-ICU settings.Item Epidemiology and source of infection in patients with febrile neutropenia: A ten-year longitudinal study(Elsevier, 2019-05-01) Al-Tawfiq, Jaffar A.; Hinedi, Kareem; Khairallah, Hanan; Saadeh, Bassam; Abbasi, Suhail; Noureen, Madeeha; Raza, Safia; Alkhatti, Adil; Medicine, School of MedicineObjectives No recent studies are available from Saudi Arabia on the etiology of febrile neutropenia. The objective of this study was to describe the characteristics of patients with febrile neutropenia and to calculate the rate of occurrence of bacteremia in these patients. Methods This is a hospital-based study of patients admitted with febrile neutropenia from 2006 to 2015. Results A total of 372 distinct episodes of febrile neutropenia representing 231 patients were included. Hematologic malignancies constituted 56.6% of the episodes. Positive blood cultures were reported in 13.5% with equal frequency of Gram-negative bacilli and gram positive cocci. The most commonly suspected sites of infection were blood 10.8% and pulmonary 9.2%, and the majority (72.5%) was thought to have no identifiable source of infection. Of all the episode, 32% had central venous catheters. The most frequently used single antimicrobial agents were imipenem (38%) and ceftazidime (7.5%). The mortality rate was 11.2% and it was significantly associated with the presence of bacteremia 24.4% versus 12.4% (P=0.016). Mortality was not significantly association with age, type of malignancy, presence of central venous catheter, or the severity of neutropenia. Compared to patients with hematological malignancy, patients with solid organ malignancy were more likely to be female 62% versus 14.9% (P<0.001) and were less likely to have bacteremia 8.7% versus 17.1%, P=0.042, respectively. Conclusion We had shown that febrile neutropenia in this study has a low rate of bacteremia and that about 45% received the recommended initial empiric therapy.Item Influenza is more common than Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) among hospitalized adult Saudi patients(Elsevier, 2017) Al-Tawfiq, Jaffar A.; Rabaan, Ali A.; Hinedi, Kareem; Medicine, School of MedicineBackground Since the initial description of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV), we adopted a systematic process of screening patients admitted with community acquired pneumonia. Here, we report the result of the surveillance activity in a general hospital in Saudi Arabia over a four year period. Materials and methods All admitted patients with community acquired pneumonia from 2012 to 2016 were tested for MERS-CoV. In addition, testing for influenza viruses was carried out starting April 2015. Results During the study period, a total of 2657 patients were screened for MERS-CoV and only 20 (0.74%) tested positive. From January 2015 to December 2016, a total of 1644 patients were tested for both MERS-CoV and influenza. None of the patients tested positive for MERS-CoV and 271 (16.4%) were positive for influenza. The detected influenza viruses were Influenza A (107, 6.5%), pandemic 2009 H1N1 (n = 120, 7.3%), and Influenza B (n = 44, 2.7%). Pandemic H1N1 was the most common influenza in 2015 with a peak in peaked October to December and influenza A other than H1N1 was more common in 2016 with a peak in August and then October to December. Conclusions MERS-CoV was a rare cause of community acquired pneumonia and other viral causes including influenza were much more common. Thus, admitted patients are potentially manageable with Oseltamivir or Zanamivir therapy.Item Performance of CURB-65 in predicting mortality of patients with community-acquired pneumonia in Saudi Arabia(2017-11-06) Al-Tawfiq, Jaffar A.; Diamond, Michael; Joy, Diamond; Hinedi, Kareem; Medicine, School of MedicineIntroduction: Various objective scoring systems were developed to standardize the approach to the designation of severity of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). There is limited data on the use of CURB-65 among admitted CAP patients in Saudi Arabia. Methodology: The retrospective study included CAP patients, admitted to a general hospital in Eastern Saudi Arabia. The CURB-65 was extracted from the available medical records. Results: During the study period, from 2013 to 2016, a total of 1786 adults were admitted with a mean age of 63.9 ± 21.7 (range 14-108 years). The majority of the patients (51.7%) had CURB-65 score 0 or 1 followed by the score 2, 3 and 4/5 (29%, 15.2%, and 4.1%, respectively). The mean CURB-65 was 1.4 ± 1.12 for those who survived and 2.27 ± 1.03 for those who died (p < 0.001). The mean age was 63.01± 21.9 years for survived patients and 75.1 ± 15.58 years for fatal cases (p < 0.001). The overall 30-day crude mortality rate was 7.6%. The mortality rates for CURB-65 scores 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4/5 were 1.8%, 4.3%, 10.2%, 14%, and 21.9%, respectively. Conclusions: The mortality rates of admitted patients with CAP did not differ from those reported in the literature. However, the utilization of CURB-65 score was low and there is a need for wider implementation of pneumonia severity index for patients presenting with CAP.