Showing papers in "Clinical Microbiology and Infection in 2010"

TL;DR: In the late 1980s, an upsurge in listeriosis rates was due to the contamination of a small number of food products, however, a restricted range of strains was responsible for most of the additional cases at that time, and no evidence exists for such a pattern since 2001.

TL;DR: This review focuses on the current state of use of MALDI-TOF MS for the identification of routine bacterial isolates and on the main difficulties that may lead to erroneous or doubtful identifications.

TL;DR: Rapid, reliable and affordable POC tests, requiring no equipment and minimal training, are now available for HIV infection, syphilis and malaria, but Poc tests for other infections are urgently needed.

TL;DR: These studies demonstrate that the ability of B. cenocepacia to acquire foreign DNA, regulate gene expression via quorum sensing, compete for iron during infection, and mediate antimicrobial resistance and inflammation via its membrane and surface polysaccharides are key features that underpin the virulence of different strains.

TL;DR: Criteria must be established for which isolates should be suspected and screened for carbapenemase production, and for which tests (phenotypic and/or genotypic) should be adopted for confirmation of the resistance mechanism, and strategies should be devised for surveillance of carbapanemase producers in order to enable the implementation of effective surveillance programmes.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors evaluated new strategies, including combination therapies, to treat severe vancomycin-resistant E. faecium infections and found that linezolid, daptomycin and tigecycline have good in vitro activity against enterococcal isolates, although their clinical use may be limited in certain clinical scenarios as a result of reduced rates of success, possible underdosing for enterococci and low serum levels, respectively.

TL;DR: A large series of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and probable invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA) are described, and the risk factors and incidence of the disease in patients with isolation of Aspergillus from lower respiratory tract samples are described.

TL;DR: The biological activity of several pneumococcal virulence factors are discussed, and how genome variation may impact on the ability of pneumococci to cause disease is described.

TL;DR: The dynamic character of serotypes and antibiotic resistance in S. pneumoniae should be controlled by a policy of prudent antibiotic use and by implementation of the new generation of conjugate vaccines.

TL;DR: This review focuses on recent developments in the detection of MGEs and their contribution to the spread of antimicrobial resistance in clinically relevant enterococci.

TL;DR: The first cases of autochthonous trans- mission of both viruses (dengue and chikungunya) in France are demonstrated, which implies that A. albopictus, which is resident in this region, is the most likely competent vector for dengue virus.

TL;DR: Although correct implementation of such measures is presumably cumbersome and expensive, the huge clinical and public health problems related to CPGN transmission, alongside the current scarcity of therapeutic options, seem to fully justify this choice.

TL;DR: The New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase (NDM-1) is a novel type of MBL named after the city of origin, which has been recently criticized, following a common practice with transferable MBLs since VIM-1 was named after Verona, Italy.

TL;DR: Several proteins and carbohydrate- or glycoconjugates that have been identified as putative virulence factors involved in the pathogenesis of enterococcal infections and may be used as targets for alternative therapies are summarized.

TL;DR: The aim of this prospective cohort study was to determine the risk factors for community-acquired urinary tract infections (UTIs) caused by extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL)-positive Escherichia coli and the distribution of the ESBL enzyme types.

TL;DR: Intravenous fosfomycin may be a beneficial and safe adjunctive treatment in the management of life-threatening ICU-acquired infections caused by carbapenem-resistant K. pneumoniae.

TL;DR: Enhanced antimicrobial resistance development is the most thoroughly studied consequence of mutators in CF and other chronic infections, although recent studies show that mutators may additionally have important effects on the evolution of virulence, genetic adaptation to the airways of CF patients, persistence of colonization, transmissibility, and perhaps lung function decline.

TL;DR: This work has confirmed that a new reservoir of MRSA has been identified in food production animals and people in contact with these animals, which involves a specific clone, multilocus sequence type 398 (ST398), which has spread extensively among animals.

TL;DR: A new protocol is tested for bacterial identification from blood culture broths in hospital routine that correlates with conventional microbiology procedures by up to 90%, and by >95% for only monomicrobial samples, and provides a decreased turn-around time for identification of bacteria isolated from blood cultures.

TL;DR: It is suggested that colonization patterns in CA- MRSA infection are distinct from those in non-CA-MRSA S. aureus infections, and the relatively high prevalence of non-nasal colonization may play a key role in CA -MRSA transmission and acquisition of infection.

TL;DR: The hypothesis that HRV infections can reduce the probability of A(H1N1) infection is supported, as viral interference between respiratory viruses could have affected the spread of the H 1N1 viruses and delayed the influenza pandemic at the beginning of autumn in France.

TL;DR: It is suggested that the horizontal transfer of bla(CTX-M) genes, mediated by mobile elements, contributes to their dissemination among E. coli isolates from pets of companion animal origin and the importance of molecular surveillance in tracking CTx-M-producing E.coli strains in pets.

TL;DR: Education of LTCF employees and better infection control are proposed to minimize the spread of resistant bacteria in the facility.

TL;DR: Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight (MALDI-TOF) mass spectrometry (MS) is a powerful tool for the species and subspecies classification of a broad spectrum of bacteria.

TL;DR: Community and healthcare environments are now significant reservoirs of ESBL-producing and CMY-producing E. coli, and retail meat is a potential source of these organisms.

TL;DR: The data suggest that voriconazole TDM is appropriate for all patients as soon as steady state is achieved, and for non-responding patients with low trough concentrations, the association with IFI-related mortality indicates the need for dose adjustments to achieve and sustain voriconsazole concentrations.

TL;DR: The use of inhaled colistin was independently associated with the cure of VAP in a multivariable analysis and independent predictors of mortality were a higher APACHE II score, presence of malignancy, and lower daily dosage of i.v.colistin.

TL;DR: Applications of MS methods in clinical microbiology are described, with a special emphasis on the different systems currently commercially available for routine identification, and a comparative table of these technologies is provided.

TL;DR: Although common helminths were reliably diagnosed by European reference laboratories, there was only moderate agreement between centres for pathogenic intestinal protozoa and the establishment of a formal network of reference laboratories is necessary to further enhance both accuracy and uniformity in parasite diagnosis.

TL;DR: An overview of rapid diagnosis of infectious diseases at the point of care and of technologies that may contribute to enhancement of the worldwide point-of-care testing market are presented.