Steven Tong
steventong.bsky.social
Steven Tong
@steventong.bsky.social
Infectious diseases, clinical trials, staphylococcus and streptococcus. Reader and runner. Go Hawks!
'de-toxified' hla variants can act to protect against this attenutation of the host response, and therefore improve immune response to future infection

Suggest targetting high risk individuals / time in life - early in life, or perhaps times of high risk (e.g., pre-surgery), or biomarker informed
April 14, 2025 at 1:43 PM
Vaccines to date have not worked for numerous reasons.
The challenges include heterogeneity of bacterial virulence factors, host response, disease manifestations, host age dependent risk.
We should consider modulating the immune response to generate favourable immunity to S. aureus.
April 14, 2025 at 1:43 PM
Juliane Bubeck Wardenburg keynote lecture at #ESCMIDGlobal on Staphylococcus aureus and alpha toxin and host response
hla well described toxin, but also modulates host T cell response to S. aureus so that immune response is attenuated
SSTI and even colonisation may lead to this modulation
April 14, 2025 at 1:43 PM
6) Investigating accessory genes across geographies, we found their frequency was conserved despite different circulating lineages. We hypothesise this could be consistent with negative frequency dependent selection - similar to pneumococcus where vaccine replacement has occurred
April 7, 2025 at 2:13 PM
4) Genomically, lineages circulating in the Top End were distinct from those in southeast Australia. Surprisingly, lineages in the Top End were replaced serially over time compared to southeast Australia where a few well-characterised lineages dominated and cycled in frequency.
April 7, 2025 at 2:13 PM
2) We collected clinical and WGS data from 2011-2023 comparing the hyperendemic tropical and sparsely populated Top End of Australia to cases from 4 hospital networks in Melbourne and Sydney representing temperate urbanised settings (southeast Australia).
April 7, 2025 at 2:13 PM
Haven't posted about SNAP for a while:

But we've just hit 4000 participants. Almost at 3 years since opening.

And submitting two late breaker oral abstracts to ESCMID Global. @escmid.bsky.social

Amazing progress and more to come.

@gurujosh.bsky.social @drtoddlee.bsky.social
February 9, 2025 at 10:16 AM
Jamie's summary:
December 10, 2024 at 5:57 AM
Jamie's summary regarding whether this should change practice.

Paul Young asked crowd for whether they would use a liberal strategy now - looked like the majority would
December 10, 2024 at 5:57 AM
Comments about sample size and whether underpowered:
December 10, 2024 at 5:57 AM
Comments from Jamie Cooper, for which Paul Young in general agreement.
December 10, 2024 at 5:57 AM
PRIMARY OUTCOME:
No difference at first glance:
BUT, note subsequent discussion from Jamie Cooper regarding more patients with better outcomes and feasibility of a larger study. Bottom line - study underpowered and probably is benefit to more liberal strategy. Likely infeasible to do bigger study
December 10, 2024 at 5:57 AM
Good separation of groups (but note the y-axis exaggerates the difference)
December 10, 2024 at 5:57 AM
BASELINE CHARACTERISTICS
December 10, 2024 at 5:57 AM
RESULTS
Recruitment:
December 10, 2024 at 5:57 AM
Primary outcome is modified Rankin Score:
December 10, 2024 at 5:57 AM
Interventions:
December 10, 2024 at 5:57 AM
Anemia is common - 50% of patients with aSAH by day 4. And is associated with worse outcomes. So blood transfusion may improve outcomes.

Inclusions:
December 10, 2024 at 5:57 AM
Audience comments: are we trying to find a place for albumin? Should we stop doing this now?

Editorial conclusions:
December 10, 2024 at 3:29 AM
Summary:
December 10, 2024 at 3:29 AM
Systematic review meta-analysis suggests no benefit in using albumin:
December 10, 2024 at 3:29 AM
Particularly in those with eGFR<60
December 10, 2024 at 3:29 AM
RESULTS

Albumin arm had more AKI!
December 10, 2024 at 3:29 AM
Baseline characteristics
December 10, 2024 at 3:29 AM
RESULTS
Recruitment
December 10, 2024 at 3:29 AM