Prosthetic joint infections (PJI) remain among the most devastating complications in orthopedic surgery, with increasing incidence paralleling the growth in arthroplasty procedures worldwide. While treatment protocols are well-established, evidence supporting current approaches is lacking, and outcomes remain suboptimal, highlighting the need for improved therapeutic strategies. AAC recently published a minireview of randomized controlled trials and emerging evidence for the management for these difficult to treat infection. Today, we discuss with one of the authors of the manuscript and an ID doctor specialized in PJI infections the findings of such paper.

• Challenges of treating prosthetic joint infections.
• Major clinical trial data supporting different approaches for treatment and prevention of PJI
• Guidance for the approach to these complicated infections.

• David Paterson MBBS, Ph.D., Professor, Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health (Joint)
  Yong Loo Lin School of Public Health (Joint), Director, ADVANCE-ID, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
• Ana Victoria Salas-Vargas, M.D. Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine, Houston Methodist Academic Institute and Weill Cornell Medical College.

This episode is brought to you by the Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy Journal.

Visit asm.org/aac to browse issues and/or submit a manuscript. If you plan to publish in AAC, ASM Members get up to 50% off publishing fees. Visit asm.org/joinasm to sign up.

It's that time of year, folks! No, not leaf-peeping season, or pumpkin spice season or even apple picking season – I'm talking respiratory virus season! The symphony of sniffles and coughs is just around the corner! It's the time of year that clinical laboratories are stocking up on supplies, developing testing algorithms and putting out communications to try to convince people that every kid with the sniffles does not, in fact, warrant a highly-multiplexed respiratory virus panel test.

The diagnostic landscape for respiratory viruses has evolved dramatically in the last five years, with widespread institution of molecular tests both in laboratories of all sizes, but also at the point of care – and even consumer direct testing. What's next for respiratory virus testing?

Watch this episode: https://youtu.be/_tXqLyV3-QE

Treponema pallidum, the causative agent of syphilis, has been around for what seems like forever, causing major outbreaks throughout the millennia and continuing to spread at high rates, globally, into today. When it comes to diagnostic testing, some tests like RPR and VDRL have stood the test of time, having been implemented in the late 1930s and 1940s, and are now used in combination with contemporary methods like EIAs and chemiluminescent assays as the reference standard method to diagnosis syphilis cases. New approaches to screening and diagnosis are needed, however, to increase test access and ultimately case identification and treatment.

• Dr. Kevin Clark
• Dr. Jody Berry

• Clinical development and performance of the First to Know Syphilis Self-Test for over-the-counter usage: a de novo rapid test for treponemal antibody

This episode of Editors in Conversation is brought to you by the Journal of Clinical Microbiology and hosted by JCM Editor in Chief, Romney Humphries, Ph.D., D(ABMM).

Visit journals.asm.org/journal/jcm to read articles and/or submit a manuscript.

Become an ASM member to receive up to 50% off publishing fees when you publish in JCM or any of the ASM journals. Sign up at asm.org/joinasm.