PET/CT can add valuable information to aid the diagnosis of fever of unknown origin (FUO), according to a new multicenter, retrospective study published in the June issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. In a cohort of more than 900 FUO patients, molecular imaging directly influenced the clinical management in nearly 75 percent, contributing to improved patient outcomes, increased patient safety, and reduced healthcare costs.

Researchers from the University of Cologne, the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT present a remarkable clinical case in the New England Journal of Medicine. The case provides new insights into the evolution of bacterial pathogens and presents the concept of heterovirulence, i.e., the simultaneous presence of subpopulations with different levels of virulence within a single infection.

Multidrug resistance is making life-saving antibiotics increasingly ineffective, leaving doctors with a few options to treat deadly bacterial infections. A new study has identified a bacterial peptide that reprograms multidrug-resistant Escherichia coli, making it vulnerable to last-resort polymyxin antibiotics. The researchers also developed an extracellular vesicle-based delivery platform that restored antibiotic activity at lower doses while reducing toxicity, introducing a new strategy that manipulates bacteria's own biology to fight drug resistance.