To establish the incidence and describe the clinical epidemiology of necrobacillosis and Lemierre's syndrome in Denmark, the clinical records of all laboratory-recorded cases of septicaemia due to Fusobacterium necrophorum biovar A, B, and C were reviewed retrospectively during a 6-year period. The incidence of necrobacillosis and Lemierre's syndrome was 1.5 and 0.8 per million persons per year, respectively, showing a tendency to increase during the period. Fusobacterium necrophorum was grown after three days' incubation, but the characteristic pleomorphic fusiform morphology was often disregarded as an important help in diagnosing necrobacillosis. The 24 patients with Lemierre's syndrome were all young and previously healthy, and none died, but pre-hospital delay was associated with a significantly higher morbidity and risk of metastatic infections. The remaining 25 patients with necrobacillosis had a high mortality, 24%, which was correlated with age and predisposing diseases, especially cancers. These findings stress the importance of a quicker clinical and microbiological diagnosis in cases of Lemierre's syndrome, and of screening for cancer in the remaining cases of necrobacillosis.

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Articles you may be interested inSpin-locking of half-integer quadrupolar nuclei in nuclear magnetic resonance of solids: Second-order quadrupolar and resonance offset effects Measuring distances between half-integer quadrupolar nuclei and detecting relative orientations of quadrupolar and dipolar tensors by double-quantum homonuclear dipolar recoupling nuclear magnetic resonance experiments Double-quantum-filtered nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy applied to quadrupolar nuclei in solids An accurate and efficient formalism is presented for simulating the effects of molecular motion on satellite and central transition nuclear magnetic resonance ͑NMR͒ spectra of half-integer quadrupole nuclei. The approach is based on the principles of the density operator and the stochastic Liouvillevon Neumann equation and may be applied for both rotating and nonrotating samples. The symmetry properties of nuclear spin ensembles have been used to rewrite the stochastic Liouvillevon Neumann equation in the form of a linear homogeneous system of coupled first-order differential equations among the alignments and coherences. This system is highly stiff and can only be solved by methods that are sufficiently accurate and stable. The properties of Cartan-Weyl operators have been used to obtain the most efficient solution for secular interactions. The methodology has been incorporated into computer programs to simulate the effects of motion for any half-integer quadrupole nucleus. These programs include the first-and second-order quadrupole and first-order shielding interactions. The formalism has been used to calculate central transition 17 O NMR spectra of representative model systems. The calculations have revealed several interesting and important properties of central transition NMR spectra that have been discussed in terms of the functional form of the line shape. The validity of the methodology has been demonstrated experimentally by simulating variable temperature central transition 17 O NMR spectra of the silicate (SiO 2 ) mineral cristobalite for both rotating and nonrotating samples. The simulations have allowed the structural and dynamical details of the ␣-␤ phase transition in cristobalite to be separated. The line shapes can only be simulated if the effects of motion are included and are consistent with a model where the oxygen atoms reorient between six different orientations. It is found that the oxygen motion is present both before and after the ␣-␤ phase transition and does not change significantly at the transition temperature. The observed changes in the quadrupole and shielding parameters are shown not to be the results of motional averaging but derive from an abrupt structural change associated with the first-order character of the ␣-␤ phase transition. The structural changes may be interpreted in terms of a model where the Si-O-Si bond angle increases slightly.