Prevalence and Determinants of Fecal Colonization with Vancomycin-ResistantEnterococcusin Hospitalized Patients in The Netherlands

2000 ◽  
Vol 21 (8) ◽  
pp. 520-524 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole van den Braak ◽  
Alewijn Ott ◽  
Alex van Belkum ◽  
Jan A.J.W. Kluytmans ◽  
Johannes G.M. Koeleman ◽  
...  

Objective:To determine the prevalence and determinants of fecal carriage of vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) in intensive care unit (ICU), hematology-oncology, and hemodialysis patients in The Netherlands.Design:Descriptive, multicenter study, with yearly 1-week point-prevalence assessments between 1995 and 1998.Population:All patients hospitalized on the testing days in ICUs and hematology-oncology wards in nine hospitals in The Netherlands were included.Methods:Rectal swabs obtained from 1,112 patients were screened for enterococci in a selective broth and subcultured on selective media with and without 6 mg/L vancomycin. Resistance genotypes were determined by polymerase chain reaction. Further characterization of VRE strains was done by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). We studied possible determinants of VRE colonization with a logistic regression analysis model. Determinants analyzed included gender, age, and log-transformed length of prior hospital stay.Results:The results showed that 614 (55%) of 1,112 patients were colonized with vancomycin-sensitive enterococci, and 15 (1.4%) of 1,112 carried VRE. No increase in VRE colonization was observed from 1995 to 1998. Eleven strains were identified asEnterococcus faeciumand four asEnterococcus faecalis. AllE faeciumand oneE faecaliscarried thevanAgene; the otherE faecalisstrains harbored thevanBgene. PFGE revealed that threevanBVRE isolated from patients hospitalized in one single ICU were related, suggesting nosocomial transmission. Though higher age seemed associated with VRE colonization, exclusion of patients with the nosocomial strain from the regression analysis decreased this relation to nonsignificant. Duration of hospital stay was not associated with VRE colonization.Conclusion:VRE colonization in Dutch hospitals is an infrequent phenomenon. Although nosocomial spread occurs, most observed cases were unrelated, which suggests the possibility of VRE acquisition from outside the hospital. Prolonged hospital stay, age, and gender proved unrelated to VRE colonization.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sudhir Bhandari ◽  
Amit Tak ◽  
Sanjay Singhal ◽  
Jyotsna Shukla ◽  
Bhoopendra Patel ◽  
...  

Abstract Objectives: The present study is aimed at estimating patient flow dynamical parameters and requirement of hospital beds. Secondly, the effects of age and gender on parameters were evaluated. Patients and Methods: In this retrospective cohort study, 987 COVID-19 patients were enrolled from SMS Medical College, Jaipur (Rajasthan, India). The survival analysis was carried out from 29 Feb to 19 May 2020 for two hazards – ‘Hazard 1’ was hospital discharge and ‘Hazard 2’ was hospital death. The starting point for survival analysis of the two hazards was considered to be hospital admission . The survival curves were estimated and additional effects of age and gender were evaluated using Cox proportional hazard regression analysis. Results: The Kaplan Meier estimates of lengths of hospital stay (Median =10 days, IQR =10 days) and median survival rate ( more than 60 days due to large amount of censored data) were obtained. The Cox Model for ‘Hazard 1’ showed no significant effect of age and gender on duration of hospital stay. Similarly, the Cox Model 2 showed no significant difference of gender on survival rate. The case fatality rate 8.1 % , recovery rate 78.8% , mortality rate 0.10 per 100 person--days and hospital admission rate 0.35 per 105 person-days were estimated.Conclusion : The study estimates hospital bed requirement based on patient flow dynamic parameters. Furthermore, study concludes that average length of hospital stay were similar for patients of both genders and all age groups.


2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (13) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paulo Paixão ◽  
Patricia Ramos ◽  
Cátia Piedade ◽  
André Casado ◽  
Maria Chasqueira

Introduction: In the last few years, cytomegalovirus reactivation has been considered an aggravating factor for septic patients in Intensive Care units. The main objectives of this study were to determine cytomegalovirus reactivation in patients with a diagnosis of sepsis admitted to an intensive care unit, and whether this reactivation was related to the evolution of the patient’s clinical condition.Material and Methods: The detection of cytomegalovirus DNA was performed by real-time polymerase chain reaction and the concentration of nine cytokines (IL-1α, IL-1β, IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-8, IL- TNF-α, and INFγ) were determined by a Multiplex ELISA technique.Results: Eight of 22 septic patients (36.3%) from the Intensive Care Unit of the Hospital da Luz had cytomegalovirus reactivation. No association was found between cytomegalovirus reactivation and gender, age, length of Intensive Care unit stay, duration of mechanical ventilation, and patient death. No significant differences were found in cytokine concentrations in patients with and without reactivation. However, patients with cytomegalovirus reactivation had a longer hospital stay from Intensive Care unit entry to hospital discharge or patient death (p = 0.025).Discussion: Despite the low sampling rate, the present study suggests that reactivation is a frequent event in patients diagnosed with sepsis and may be related to prolonged hospital stay in these patients.Conclusion: The overall analysis of the results obtained and the literature review do not support the concept that cytomegalovirus monitoring should be implemented in routine practice, but it seems prudent to wait for further randomized trials using antiviral prophylaxis, before assuming a definitive attitude towards the role of cytomegalovirus in sepsis.


Plant Disease ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 91 (9) ◽  
pp. 1194-1197 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Pahalawatta ◽  
R. Miglino ◽  
K. B. Druffel ◽  
A. Jodlowska ◽  
A. R. van Schadewijk ◽  
...  

Dahlia mosaic, caused by Dahlia mosaic virus (DMV), is one of the most important viral diseases of dahlia. Molecular characterization of DMV showed the association of two distinct caulimoviruses (DMV-D10, DMV-Portland) and a D10-like sequence variant (DMV-Holland) with the disease. Using primers specific to these two viruses and the sequence variant, a polymerase chain reaction–based assay was used to determine their relative incidence in several dahlia samples from the United States and the Netherlands. Testing was done on samples collected in 2005 and 2006 in the United States and in 2006 in the Netherlands. Results indicated the predominance of DMV-D10 over DMV-Portland and DMV-Holland in both the United States and the Netherlands. Using conserved regions of the viral genome, primers were designed and used to detect all three sequences. Results suggested that DMV-D10 is predominantly associated with dahlia mosaic, but diagnostics should also include testing for DMV-Portland and DMV-Holland.


1995 ◽  
Vol 74 (04) ◽  
pp. 1079-1087 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus-P Radtke ◽  
José A Fernández ◽  
Bruno O Villoutreix ◽  
Judith S Greengard ◽  
John H Griffin

SummarycDNAs for protein C inhibitor (PCI) were cloned from human and rhesus monkey 1 liver RNAs by reverse transcription and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification. Sequencing showed that rhesus monkey and human PCI cDNAs were 93% identical. Predicted amino acid sequences differed at 26 of 387 residues. Pour of these differences (T352M, N359S, R362K, L3631) were in the reactive center loop that is important for inhibitory specificity, and two were in the N-terminal helix (M8T, E13K) that is implicated in glycosaminoglycan binding. PCI in human or rhesus monkey plasma showed comparable inhibitory activity towards human activated protein C in the presence of 10 U/ml heparin. However, maximal acceleration of the inhibition of activated protein C required 5-fold lower heparin concentration for rhesus monkey than for human plasma, consistent with the interpretation that the additional positive charge (E13K) in a putative-heparin binding region increased the affinity for heparin.


1992 ◽  
Vol 67 (01) ◽  
pp. 063-065 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sherryl A M Taylor ◽  
Jacalyn Duffin ◽  
Cherie Cameron ◽  
Jerome Teitel ◽  
Bernadette Garvey ◽  
...  

SummaryChristmas disease was first reported as a distinct clinical entity in two manuscripts published in 1952 (1, 2). The eponym associated with this disorder, is the surname of the first patient examined in detail and reported by Biggs and colleagues in a paper describing the clinical and laboratory features of seven affected individuals (3). This patient has severe factor IX coagulant deficiency (less than 0.01 units/ml) and no detectable circulating factor IX antigen (less than 0.01 units/ml). Coding sequence and splice junctions of the factor IX gene from this patient have been amplified in vitro through the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). One nucleotide substitution was identified at nucleotide 30,070 where a guanine was replaced by a cytosine. This mutation alters the amino acid encoded at position 206 in the factor IX protein from cysteine to serine. The non conservative nature of this substitution, the absence of this change in more than 200 previously sequenced factor IX genes and the fact that the remainder of the coding region of this gene was normal, all provide strong circumstantial evidence in favour of this change being the causative mutation in this patient. The molecular characterization of this novel mutation in the index case of Christmas disease, contributes to the rapidly expanding body of knowledge pertaining to Christmas disease pathogenesis.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 3212-3221
Author(s):  
Naniwadekar R G

Multiple researchers have given numerous guidelines in the clinical management of this disorder in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, after comprehensive works on the subject. As a result, a very wide variety of surgical procedures are now available to the surgeon to suit the requirement. There have been numerous advances in the management of inguinal hernia. Inguinal hernias can conveniently be repaired under all kinds of anaesthesia, namely general, spinal and local. Whereas the general anaesthesia requires the services of an experienced anaesthetist and new devices and spinal anaesthesia requires postoperative impairment while local anaesthesia is safe to prescribe, easy and efficient and does not cause postoperative complications. This work consisted of a study group of twenty-five adult patients of uncomplicated inguinal hernias, who after repair of hernias, which after repair of hernias were allowed early ambulation and had a short hospital, stay of one day post operatively. The second control group consisted of similar twenty-five patients who are subjected to conventional delayed ambulation and prolonged hospital stay. The results of repair in the two groups were compared; the available literature on the subject was reviewed. The implementation of ”shortstay surgery” not only relieves the waiting list in hospitals but also offers an economic boost and provides the patient with some social advantages.


2015 ◽  
Vol 47 (12) ◽  
pp. 1520
Author(s):  
Peng XU ◽  
Lu QI ◽  
Jian XIONG ◽  
Haosheng YE

Impact ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (7) ◽  
pp. 45-47
Author(s):  
Naoko Fujii

The majority of human beings will be admitted to hospital at some point over the course of their lives. For the more fortunate among us, these hospital stays will be brief and will barely register as a significant experience. However, for others, being admitted for weeks or months at a time will be necessary in order to combat and recover from whatever it was that made admittance to hospital necessary. While it is easy to think of many reasons why a prolonged hospital stay might be undesirable, one that may escape our attention is the clothes that are worn by patients during their stay. Once a patient has been assigned a bed, they are often given a gown which they put on without thought and then lie down. The gowns that are given to patients are generally designed with healthcare professionals in mind. For example, in Japan pyjamas and yukata (bathrobes) are used as hospital gowns because they have a front opening that is easy to use during treatment and nursing care. In addition, the other gowns can be opened from the ankle to the crotch using the zip. Dr Naoko Fujii has focused her career on designing clothes for hospital patients and believes that there is a way to satisfy the practical needs of a hospital and the care it gives at the same time as satisfying the requirements of patients. She is now focusing her attention on this challenge.


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