Charles Stratton

Vanderbilt University | Vander Bilt · Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology

Improving the accuracy of medical image interpretation can improve the diagnosis of numerous diseases. We compared different approaches to aggregating repeated decisions about medical images to improve the accuracy of a single decision maker. We tested our algorithms on data from both novices (undergraduates) and experts (medical professionals). Pa...

Improving the accuracy of medical image interpretation is critical to improving the diagnosis of many diseases. Using both novices (undergraduates) and experts (medical professionals), we investigated methods for improving the accuracy of a single decision maker and a group of decision makers by aggregating repeated decisions in different ways. Par...

Many important real-world decision tasks involve the detection of rarely occurring targets (e.g., weapons in luggage, potentially cancerous abnormalities in radiographs). Over the past decade, it has been repeatedly demonstrated that extreme prevalence (both high and low) leads to an increase in errors. While this “prevalence effect” is well establ...

Objectives: We developed and participated in a 1-week laboratory medicine training presented from June 3, 2019, to June 7, 2019. Methods: The training was a combination of daily morning lectures and case presentations as well as afternoon practical sessions in the clinical laboratory. The content was selected over months by local organizers and...

Background: Biofilms represent a complex milieu of matrix-enclosed microorganisms, which can significantly contribute to the pathology of chronic wounds. In this study, we compare the activity of 3 commercial antimicrobial wound care solutions, Vashe (HOCl based), PhaseOne (HOCl based), and Sulfamylon (mafenide acetate), for their in vitro activit...

Background Heuristics and cognitive biases are thought to play an important role in diagnostic medical error. How to systematically determine and capture these kinds of errors remains unclear. Morbidity and mortality rounds (MMRs) are generally focused on reducing medical error by identifying and correcting systems failures. However, they may also...

Abstract Training individuals to make accurate decisions from medical images is a critical component of education in diagnostic pathology. We describe a joint experimental and computational modeling approach to examine the similarities and differences in the cognitive processes of novice participants and experienced participants (pathology resident...

Conventional susceptibility testing of Chlamydophila pneumoniae does not account for the complex life cycle that takes place in an obligatory intracellular niche and involves multiple morphological forms. Some of these forms (elementary bodies and cryptic bodies) cause persistence and are not susceptible to antimicrobial agents. Therefore, we descr...

Mafenide acetate is an effective but costly antimicrobial solution used for burn wounds. The package insert instructs the user to discard unused solution within 48 hours of opening. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the antimicrobial activity of mafenide acetate beyond 48 hours after reconstitution, to possibly reduce cost by eliminating pro...

One of the most common urologic problems afflicting millions of people worldwide is urinary tract infection (UTI). The severity of UTIs ranges from asymptomatic bacteriuria to acute cystitis, and in severe cases, pyelonephritis and urosepsis. The primary cause of UTIs is uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC), for which current antibiotic therapies...

The ability to make timely and accurate decisions is critical for cancer detection in diagnostic pathology. We describe a joint experimental and computational modeling approach for determining the impact of three factors on the identification of peripheral blood blast cells (cancer indicators) versus normal white blood cells in microscopy images of...

Mafenide acetate is used in some burn wounds for its ability to penetrate eschar but requires frequent uncomfortable dressing changes for its application. The authors hypothesize that hydrofiber dressings will hold mafenide acetate solution for an extended period of time and maintain antimicrobial activity longer than traditional gauze, thus possib...

Antibiotics are small molecules that are active against bacteria because of their interaction with, and inhibition of, a specific target. The four major biochemical mechanisms of resistance are: (1) alteration of the target site, (2) enzymatic destruction/detoxification of the antibiotic, (3) reduced uptake or (4) active efflux of the drug. Other r...

EXCERPT Healthcare workers (HCWs) are known to be at risk for contracting an infection from a patient or from a patient specimen.1 It might be presumed that no one would be more aware of this risk than HCWs themselves; yet, these risks often are minimized or even ignored by HCWs who perhaps through long exposure to such risks have become immune to...

The diagnosis of blood-borne infections in immunocompromised patients is a major challenge for the clinical microbiology laboratory. Isolation of blood-borne pathogens in these patients has profound clinical implications, yet is fraught with technical problems. Contamination of blood cultures by skin flora is particularly problematic in the immunos...

Recognition of the importance of bactericidal activity in certain clinical settings has generated a great deal of interest in bactericidal testing. Indeed, bactericidal testing can be of great use in a number of settings, but it also has the potential for being overutilized. Moreover, there are biologic and technical pitfalls inherent in bactericid...

Pseudomonas cepacia was first reported in the literature by Burkholder as a phytopathogen responsible for sour skin, a disease of onion bulbs. Similar bacteria were isolated from other sources and given various names including Pseudomonas multivorans, Pseudomonas kingii, and EO-1. The synonymy of these organisms with P. cepacia was eventually estab...

Adherence mechanisms have been described for some microbes, often in direct association with onset of infection. In other cases, the evidence is vague. This article will summarize modes of attachment, and will focus on each anatomical tract in an effort to outline the relationship between microbial adherence, host cells, foreign bodies, and infecti...

There has been a tremendous increase in the number of immunocompromised patients over the past few decades, which has resulted in an increased number of serious fungal infections. These infections frequently require an invasive procedure, such as bone, lung, or lymph node biopsy, in order to obtain tissue for diagnosis. Far too often the tissue obt...