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Retired NBME 18 Answers

nbme18/Block 3/Question#30 (reveal difficulty score)
A 63-year-old man with mild emphysema who has ...
Inhalation of aerosols from an environmental source ๐Ÿ” / ๐Ÿ“บ / ๐ŸŒณ / ๐Ÿ“–
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submitted by โˆ—adong(144)
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Pretty sure this is a case of Legionella. The fact that it didn't show up on culture but a "highly specialized" medium (in hindsight buffered charcoal yeast) yielded gram-negative rods put Legionella on my radar. The headache and dry cough also line up with it but the macrolides threw me off since I thought they were treated with fluoroquinolone. But the sketchy video for macrolides includes Legionella as a target so it worked out.

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epiglotitties  Agree! FA also says that treatment is w/ macrolide or quinolone. Just to add something, a UW question (dont know Qid) specified that sputum gram stain for Legionella will show many neutrophils but few or no organisms, exactly how they presented it in this case. +1



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