Biochemical Changes and Risk Factors in the Prognosis of Antibiotics Susceptibility in Urinary Tract Infections

The aim of our study was evaluation of prevalence of uncomplicated and complicated urinary tract infections (UTIs) among patients with UTIs associated with Gram - negative bacteria and analysis of prognostic risk factors in complicated UTIs. Weretrospectivelyanalyzed the medical records of inpatients with diagnosis of UTI based on clinical, biological and microbiological assay. Susceptibility tests for different antimicrobial categories were performed. Risk factors in complicated UTIs were correlated with pathogens� susceptibility. A total of 96 eligible patients were analyzed. Complicated UTIs were identified in 66.67% cases. The most frequent uropathogens isolated were E.coli and Klebsiella species. Exrtrarenal factors and nephropathic disease were the most common factors associatedwith an increased prevalence of multi -drug resistant isolates. Knowledge of the spectrum of the possible pathogens and local resistance patterns are very important for the antibacterial treatment outcome.

Gelatin tannate versus other antidiarrheal medication in children with acute gastroenteritis: a retrospective, observational study

AIM

To evaluate the effectiveness and safety of gelatin tannate (GT) for acute gastroenteritis (AGE) in children.

MATERIALS & METHODS

In this retrospective, observational study, children admitted for AGE received GT ± oral rehydration solution (ORS; n = 46) or other antidiarrheal medications ± ORS (n = 46). Number and consistency of stools were recorded.

RESULTS

Children were aged 6 months to 7.9 years. GT ± ORS reduced diarrhea duration (29.0 vs 45.4 h, p < 0.0001) and normalized stool consistency at 72 h in significantly more patients (87.0 vs 30.4%; p = 0.026) compared with other antidiarrheal medications ± ORS. Differences in favor of GT were apparent from 12 h onward.

CONCLUSION

GT is more effective than conventional treatment for managing AGE in children.

New evidence on oral L. plantarum P17630 product in women with history of recurrent vulvovaginal candidiasis (RVVC): a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled study

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate activity and tolerability of an oral product containing the specific probiotic strain Lactobacillus plantarum P17630 on vaginal colonization of lactic acid bacteria.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

L. plantarum P17630 (5x109 CFU/capsule) or placebo were formulated in capsules and administrated orally to a total of 93 women with a history of recurrent vulvovaginal candidiasis over a period of 3 treatment cycles (15 days/cycle) separated by 15-day wash-out intervals. Vulvovaginal examinations and vaginal mycological culture, including Nugent score and Lactobacillary grade (LBG), were assessed at baseline, at day 45 and at day 90 (end of the study).

RESULTS

Probiotic intake significantly improved lactobacilli colonization on vaginal epithelial cells. The results demonstrated a significant difference in LBG score when comparing day 0 to day 45 (p=0.000016) and to day 90 (p=0.001415) in women treated with L. plantarum P17630. No evidence of improvement in LBG score was recorded in women who received placebo (p<0.005). The increased lactobacilli adhesion was associated with the improvement of clinical signs such as redness, swelling, and discharge.

CONCLUSIONS

This study demonstrates that the administration of oral probiotic Lactobacillus plantarum P17630 improves vagina colonization of acid lactic bacteria (an increase of vaginal LBG score) and suggests the use of this oral product to successfully prevent episodes of vulvovaginal candidiasis. The clinical study described in this article is registered in the ISRCTN registry with trial registration ID ISRCTN12669692.

CARDIOVASCULAR RISK ASSESSMENT IN THE ADULT (AGED 40-79 YEARS) ROMANIAN POPULATION

Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Diseases are the leading cause of death worldwide.

Aim

To estimate the prevalence of cardiovascular risk (CVR) categories in the adult population (aged 40-79 years) of Romania.

Design

The present study was part of the epidemiological, cross-sectional PREDATORR study (PREvalence of DiAbeTes mellitus, prediabetes, overweight, Obesity, dyslipidemia, hyperuricemia and chronic kidney disease in Romania).

Subjects and Methods

Exclusion criteria: age <40/or>79 years old and diagnosis of ischemic vascular disease. The CVR was evaluated using charts developed by the World Health Organization/ International Society of Hypertension (WHO/ISH) available for Europe B (epidemiological sub-region where Romania was included). The CVR was divided into 5 categories: <10%, 10-20%, 20-30%, 30-40%, > 40%.

Results

A total of 1631 subjects (57.0±10.7 years, 45.1% males) were included in the present study.The age and sex-adjusted prevalence of CVR >40% was 2.9% (95%CI 2.8-3.1%), CVR 30-40% was 1.85% (95%CI 1.8-1.9%), CVR 20-30% was 5.8% (95%CI 5.6-6.0%) and 13.0% (95%CI 12.8-13.3%) of the adult Romanian population has a 10-20% CVR, these CVR categories being more frequent in male and older age. Diabetes, overweight/obesity and smoking were associated with high CVR categories.

Conclusion

Romania is one of the countries with high CVR, requiring CVD prevention measures.

Effectiveness and safety profile of ipilimumab therapy in previously treated patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma - the Romanian Patient Access Program

PURPOSE

The Romanian Patient Access Program (Ro-PAP, CA 184-427), part of the European Expanded Access Program (EAP), was developed to evaluate the effectiveness and safety profile ipilimumab in previously treated patients with advanced melanoma (unresectable or metastatic melanoma). The objective of our retrospective observational study of patients included in this program was to provide data recorded in real-life settings.

METHODS

We analysed 89 patients enrolled in Ro-PAP, CA 184-427 (54 men and 35 women) aged between 29 and 89 years. The patients received ipilimumab 3mg/kg, administered with short 30-min i.v. infusion every 3 weeks, having a total of 4 doses. Patients were assessed for tumor response, overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS), and were monitored for adverse events (AE).

RESULTS

At 12 weeks after the completion of therapy, the complete and partial response rates were 6.74% each, stable disease 15.73%, with the best overall response rate 13.48% and disease control rate 29.21%. Median OS was 189.00 days (95% CI 69.50-308.49) and median PFS 124.00 days (95% CI 85.05-162.94). The level of patient functionality at the beginning of ipilimumab treatment showed to be an important predictor of outcome, as patients with ECOG performance status (PS) (0) before therapy with ipilimumab had a higher OS compared with those with impaired functionality.

CONCLUSIONS

The use of ipilimumab in daily clinical practice demonstrated to be effective and safe, consistent with data coming from randomized clinical trials or other observational studies.

Efficacy and safety of APT198K for the treatment of infantile colic: a pilot study

AIM

Comparing efficacy and safety of APT198K (xyloglucan plus heat-killed Lactobacillus reuteri SGL01 and Bifidobacterium brevis SGB01) versus a lactase dietary supplement as first-line treatment of infantile colic.

METHODS

Randomized, multicenter, open-label, parallel group, active-controlled study, in 46 infants aged 3-16 weeks with infantile colic, receiving APT198K or a lactase dietary supplement for 10 days.

RESULTS

Number and duration of crying episodes decreased significantly versus baseline in both groups. On day 8, the mean duration of crying per episode was significantly shorter in the APT198K group compared with the lactase group (9.14 ± 5.34 vs 13.22 ± 5.29 min; p = 0.014) and remained so up to day 11.

CONCLUSION

APT198K decreased the mean duration per crying episode significantly more than a lactase dietary supplement in infants with colic. Further evaluation in larger studies is warranted. Clinical trial registry: EudraCT number 2014-002860-334; https://eudract.ema.europa.eu .

Speech audiometry in noise-exposed workers: the SRT-PTA relationship revisited

The speech recognition threshold (SRT) is believed to be related primarily to the pure-tone average (PTA) and the steepness of the hearing loss. However, there are indications that it may also be influenced by perceptual or cognitive-linguistic factors, or both, such as meaningfulness of the speech stimuli. The purpose of the present study was to ascertain the correspondence between SRT and PTA in noise-exposed workers with various degrees of speech recognition threshold shift in noise. To this end, a total of 807 SRTs and PTAs collected from fluent speakers of Quebec French noise-exposed workers were compared. Measurements of context effects on speech recognition were taken based on a general hypothesis that they should be facilitating phoneme or word restoration in conditions of high stimulus uncertainty as present in SRT assessment, thus acting to confound the SRT PTA relationship. Using principal components analysis, we found a significant effect not only of low-frequency hearing sensitivity but language context effects on SRT. After a correction was introduced to partial out these linguistic context effects, correlations between SRT and PTA increased but they were lower than predicted. In a related treatment analysis, we found a large number of observations (230 out of 807) where SRTs were more sensitive than PTAs by a factor of 8 to 16 dB. This was the case even though correlations between the two measurements were within the range commonly advocated in the field of clinical audiology (0.85-0.95). This was interpreted as a sign of phonological and lexical context effects on the speech recognition task actually used by individual subjects to facilitate speech understanding, to the point perhaps of making it as simple as the detection of pure tones.

Banding analysis of the somatic chromosomes of the domestic dog (Canis familiaris)

The chromosomes of the domestic dog (Beagle) were investigated by several different staining techniques. G-banding, Q-banding, and the bis-benzimidazol derivative Hoechst 33258, make possible the identification of all 39 chromosome pairs. Constitutive heterochromatin (C-bands) was present on a few chromosomes as distinctive, large stained areas; on the other autosomes there was little or no heterochromatin detectable.