Sunday, June 29, 2008
Epidemic typhus
Lancet Infect Dis. 2008 Jul
Bechah Y, Capo C, Mege JL, Raoult D.
Unit for Research on Emergent and Tropical Infectious Diseases (URMITE), CNRS-IRD UMR 6236, Faculty of Medicine, University of the Mediterranean, Marseille, France.
Epidemic typhus is transmitted to human beings by the body louse Pediculus humanus corporis. The disease is still considered a major threat by public-health authorities, despite the efficacy of antibiotics, because poor sanitary conditions are conducive to louse proliferation. Until recently, Rickettsia prowazekii, the causal agent, was thought to be confined to human beings and their body lice. Since 1975, R prowazekii infection in human beings has been related to contact with the flying squirrel Glaucomys volans in the USA. Moreover, Brill-Zinsser disease, a relapsed form of epidemic typhus that appears as sporadic cases many years after the initial infection, is unrelated to louse infestation. Stress or a waning immune system are likely to reactivate this earlier persistent infection, which could be the source of new epidemics when conditions facilitate louse infestation. Finally, R prowazekii is a potential category B bioterrorism agent, because it is stable in dried louse faeces and can be transmitted through aerosols. An increased understanding of the pathogenesis of epidemic typhus may be useful for protection against this bacterial threat.
Management of periprosthetic infection
Chirurg. 2008 Jun 27
Friesecke C, Wodtke J.
c/o ENDO-Klinik, Holstenstraße 2, 22767, Hamburg, Deutschland, christian.friesecke@endo.de.
Periprosthetic infection is a permanent risk and severe complication in joint arthroplasty. Systematic diagnostics under optimal conditions are necessary for a successful therapy. Patient history, clinical examination and an elevated CRP-level is the basis for suspicion of infection. The diagnosis is confirmed by identification of the pathogen from a sample collected through joint aspiration under sterile conditions. The microbiological examination is done in a laboratory specialized in the diagnosis of foreign body infections. The pattern of resistance of the identified pathogen determines the topical and systemic course of antibiotics. Surgical treatment is characterized by exchange of the prosthesis and radical debridement. The exchange can be carried out in one or two stages. The one-stage exchange offers several advantages compared to two or more stage procedures for all those involved - patient, surgeon and health care system - while providing the same chance of successful elimination of infection, with even better functional results.
Springerlink
Friday, June 27, 2008
Neglected infections of poverty in the United States of america.
PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2008 Jun
Hotez PJ.
Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Tropical Medicine, The George Washington University and Sabin Vaccine Institute, Washington, D.C., United States of America.
In the United States, there is a largely hidden burden of diseases caused by a group of chronic and debilitating parasitic, bacterial, and congenital infections known as the neglected infections of poverty. Like their neglected tropical disease counterparts in developing countries, the neglected infections of poverty in the US disproportionately affect impoverished and under-represented minority populations.
The major neglected infections include the helminth infections, toxocariasis, strongyloidiasis, ascariasis, and cysticercosis; the intestinal protozoan infection trichomoniasis; some zoonotic bacterial infections, including leptospirosis; the vector-borne infections Chagas disease, leishmaniasis, trench fever, and dengue fever; and the congenital infections cytomegalovirus (CMV), toxoplasmosis, and syphilis.
These diseases occur predominantly in people of color living in the Mississippi Delta and elsewhere in the American South, in disadvantaged urban areas, and in the US-Mexico borderlands, as well as in certain immigrant populations and disadvantaged white populations living in Appalachia.
Preliminary disease burden estimates of the neglected infections of poverty indicate that tens of thousands, or in some cases, hundreds of thousands of poor Americans harbor these chronic infections, which represent some of the greatest health disparities in the United States.
Specific policy recommendations include active surveillance (including newborn screening) to ascertain accurate population-based estimates of disease burden; epidemiological studies to determine the extent of autochthonous transmission of Chagas disease and other infections; mass or targeted treatments; vector control; and research and development for new control tools including improved diagnostics and accelerated development of a vaccine to prevent congenital CMV infection and congenital toxoplasmosis.
PLoS Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Anti-infective treatment of bacterial urinary tract infections.
Curr Med Chem. 2008
Wagenlehner FM, Pilatz A, Naber KG, Perletti G, Wagenlehner CM, Weidner W.
Department of Urology and Pediatric Urology, Justus-Liebig-University, Giessen, Germany. Wagenlehner@AOL.com.
Bacterial urinary tract infections (UTI) are frequently found in the outpatient as well as in the nosocomial setting. The bacterial UTI can be stratified into uncomplicated and complicated UTI. Antibiotic resistance is continuously increasing in uncomplicated as well as complicated UTI. In uncomplicated UTI efforts are made to use antibiotic substances exclusively for this indication. In complicated UTI as broad spectrum antibiotics are increasingly used, the higher the antimicrobial resistance rates are reported. There are two predominant aims in the antimicrobial treatment of both uncomplicated and complicated UTI: 1.) rapid and effective response to therapy, prevention of complications and prevention of recurrence in the individual patient treated, and 2.) prevention of emergence of resistance to anti-infective agents in the microbial environment. The use of antibiotics has to keep up with the continuous change in antimicrobial resistance and the tailored needs in the individual patient.
Antibiotic substances therefore need to become evaluated for each indication and continuously followed for clinical usage. The knowledge of structure-activity relationships of antimicrobial substances and bacterial resistance mechanisms to antibiotics help to use antibiotics better in daily routine and design new derivatives and substances. The aim of this review is to describe the chemistry and structure-activity relationships of current antibiotics and promising substances in development for the treatment of UTI.
PMID: 18537619 [PubMed - in process]
Labels: (UTI), Antibiotic resistance, antimicrobial substances, Bacterial urinary tract infections
