Biomedical subjects
Dennis L Murray
Publications and source records attributed to Dennis L Murray.
Immunizations for the college student: a campus perspective of an outbreak and national and international considerations.
Although vaccine-preventable diseases have declined to record-low levels in the United States, infectious disease "epidemics" on college campuses continue. A large student body with variable immunization status makes a college campus fertile ground for the spread of communicable diseases. The presence of international students and an increasingly large number of students traveling abroad make it essential that individuals charged with defining and instituting health-related policies for the university have knowledge about health issues occurring in foreign countries as well. Several safe and effective vaccines are available that offer protection to young adults from a variety of infectious diseases in the United States. Because vaccine-preventable diseases can cause both human and economic problems for colleges and universities, administrators should take steps to assure that the students on college campuses benefit from these vaccines.
Therapy for Mycobacterium bovis.
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Neisseria meningitidis endophthalmitis: use of polymerase chain reaction to support an etiologic diagnosis.
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Time and out-of-pocket costs associated with respiratory syncytial virus hospitalization of infants.
OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to quantify time spent plus out-of-pocket costs associated with confirmed respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) hospitalization of infants not prophylaxed against RSV. METHODS: A prospective survey was carried out at multiple tertiary care hospitals in the United States. PATIENTS: The patients consisted of a consecutive sample of infants <12 months, born between 33 and 35 weeks of gestation. One site also enrolled full-term infants hospitalized with confirmed RSV. Daily patient census identified eligible patients. Consenting caregivers of eligible subjects (n=84, 1 refusal) were interviewed on discharge day and by telephone approximately 30 days following discharge regarding time and out-of-pocket costs due to RSV. RESULTS: Total average out of pocket expenses were 643.69 US dollars (range 21-16,867 US dollars; SD 2,403 US dollars) for premature and 214.42 US dollars (range 6-827 US dollars; SD 218 US dollars) (P=.0158) for full-term subjects. Total average economic burden per admission was 4517.07 US dollars for premature and 2135.30 US dollars for full-term infants, including the value of lost productivity but excluding inpatient hospital and physician bills and lost income. Premature infants (n=48) had longer hospital stays (mean 6.9 days; SD 7.5 vs. 3.4 days; SD 2.6 days) (P=.001) with an associated mean total time spent by up to 5 adults of 281.7 hours (range 25-2819.7 hours; SD 465.8 hours) versus a mean of 139.7 hours (range 31.8-561.3 hours; SD 118.1 hours) for term infants (P=.109). Time and out-of-pocket costs continued after discharge. CONCLUSIONS: RSV hospitalization of infants is associated with substantial, previously unmeasured time and monetary losses. These losses continued following discharge. The economic burden on families and society appears heavier for infants born at 33 to 35 weeks of gestation than for full-term infants.
Noninvasive estimation of body composition in small mammals: a comparison of conductive and morphometric techniques.
Body fat stores may serve as an index of condition in mammals. Thus, techniques that measure fat content accurately are important for assessing the ecological correlates of condition in mammal populations. We compared the ability of two conductive techniques, bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) and total body electrical conductivity (TOBEC), to predict body composition with that of morphometric methods in three small mammal species: red squirrels (n=13), snowshoe hares (n=30), and yellow-bellied marmots (n=4). Animals were livetrapped in northern Idaho; BIA (all subjects) and TOBEC (squirrels only) measurements were taken following chemical immobilization in the field, and morphometric measurements were taken postmortem. Information provided by BIA and TOBEC failed to improve upon the predictive power of morphometric equations for total body water (TBW) and lean body mass (LBM) in squirrels and hares, which do not store substantial amounts of fat (<5% body mass comprised of fat). Although the same pattern held with respect to LBM in marmots, which accumulate substantial amounts of body fat (>10% body mass), a BIA-based model proved best at estimating TBW, suggesting that the usefulness of conductive techniques may be a function of fat deposition. However, regardless of the technique used to predict body composition, estimates of body fat furnished by our equations failed to approximate actual fat levels accurately in all three test species, probably because these techniques only provide indirect estimates of fat content. These results highlight the limitations inherent in contemporary methods of animal fat estimation and underscore the need for the development of direct and accurate measures of body fat in mammals.