Staph Confirmed

Infection slows Brady's rehab
More complications can't be ruled out
Shira Springer, Boston Globe, 11/11/08

Tom Brady returned to Boston recently for a checkup on his surgically repaired left knee by team doctors, according to NFL sources. Those same sources also confirmed that the Patriots quarterback suffered a postoperative staph infection and remains on antibiotics. Staph is the most common kind of postoperative infection.

Doctors fear nothing more than the development of infections and blood clots. If not caught quickly and treated properly, such complications can threaten a patient's life, never mind the success of a surgery. In Brady's case, the infection was caught early and treated aggressively with wash-out procedures and IV antibiotics.

But it still constitutes a major setback, since infection delays rehab, increases the risk of scar tissue buildup, and leaves the patient more susceptible to long-term pain and stiffness. Restoring range of motion is the most important aspect of initial post-op rehab from ACL reconstruction, and there is a limited window of opportunity to work on it.

In other superbug news

Finally, something positive to report on the superbug front.

Test Drug Does Well Against Hospital Infection
Andrew Pollack, NY Times, 11/10/08

A new antibiotic being developed by a small San Diego company fared well in a clinical trial, holding promise in treating an intestinal superbug that is commonly spread in hospitals and is becoming more deadly.

In the trial, the drug developed by Optimer Pharmaceuticals to treat a bacterium, Clostridium difficile, worked better than the only approved drug on the market.

The bacterium kills thousands of Americans a year, and that number has been rising sharply, in part because a more virulent strain has emerged.

“C. difficile, if you look at the numbers, probably far outstrips MRSA as a hospital-acquired problem,” said Dr. Stuart Johnson, an associate professor at Stritch School of Medicine at Loyola University.

In the clinical trial, both Optimer’s drug and Vancocin were nearly 90 percent effective in initially clearing the infection. But only 15.4 percent of those treated with Optimer’s drug, called OPT-80, suffered a relapse within four weeks, compared with 25.3 percent of those treated with Vancocin.

The longer-term cure rate, meaning initial cure without recurrence, was 74.6 percent for OPT-80 compared with 64.1 percent for Vancocin.

Not a laughing matter

During last Thursday's Browns Broncos game NFL Network commentator Rich Eisen, made a staph related joke when referring to Brown's quarterback Brady Quinn and TE Kellen Winslow.

The joke went something like this: Quinn has already hooked up with Winslow twice for touchdowns, you might call it infectious.

Winslow, has suffered two staph infections since entering the NFL. The seriousness of staph infections has been recounted ad nauseam on the leg.

Not funny Rich. Eisen's inappropriate joke reminded me of SNF host Al Michaels, questioning weather global warming was a fact or not.

WASH YOUR HANDS & COVER CUTS & SCRAPES