ProblemsYou are a health-care professional involved in the treatment of an elder

Question

ProblemsYou are a health-care professional involved in the treatment of an elderly patient receiving out-patient hemodialysis through a central vascular catheter. During preparation for hemodialysis treatment on a particularly hectic day, you skip a step in your facility’s hand hygiene protocol and are not careful while putting on your gloves. Just a few cells of the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosaare wiped from your hand onto the outside of your glove and are then deposited at the edge of the patient’s catheter.Just 5of these cellsare pushed further into the catheter, adhere to the plastic and start dividing. The patient finishes hemodialysis treatment and goes home. The generation time of this P. aeruginosastrain growing as a biofilm on the catheter, under these conditions is 5hours.

1) How many bacteria are present in the catheter after 48 hours?(1.8pts)(Enter the answer in Canvas either as the full number typed out, or in scientific notation in the format X.XEx)

After 48 hrs., the patient returns for another hemodialysis treatment. During this second treatment, the clump of P. aeruginosacells in the catheter are flushed into the patient’s bloodstream. Some cells in the biofilm are dead, but a total of 25cellsremain alive, enterthe patient’s bloodstream and begin dividing. Eventually, the patient is rushed to the emergency room with symptoms of sepsis. At the time she is admitted to the hospital, it is determined that she has 102cells/mLof P. aeruginosain her blood. If she has 3.9Lof blood in her body,

2) How many generationshave the bacteria been through from the time the cells entered herblood until shearrived at the hospital? (Enter the answer in the format X.X)

3) How many days havepassed since the bacteria entered her blood? (Assume a constantgeneration time of 5hoursin blood)(Enter the answer in the format X.X)

Explanation / Answer

Generation time is the specific amount of time a particular bacterial strain takes to double in number. Here it is 5 hours.

1) no of bacteria after 48 hrs:

No of cell divisions = 48/5 = 9. *remainder is ignored

Initial cells = 5

Cells after 48 hrs = 29×5 = 2560

2) initial no of cells in blood = 25

Final no of cells = 102×3.9×1000 = 397,800

No of generations = no of cell divisions

2n×25 = 397800

2n = 397800/25 = 15912

n = log2(15912)

n = 13.95 =~ 14 divisions or 14 generations

3) no of days = 5×14 = 70 hours ~ 3 days

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse P
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.