Annals of laboratory medicine
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No study has examined the epidemiology of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteremia in Korean veterans' hospitals. We investigated the microbiological and clinical epidemiology of S. aureus bacteremia at the central Veterans Health Services (VHS) hospital in Korea. ⋯ MRSA was highly prevalent in both COHA and HA bacteremia. The introduction of virulent CA-MRSA strains may be an important cause of increased HA-MRSA bacteremia in VHS hospitals.
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Chromosomal microarray (CMA) testing is a first-tier test for patients with developmental delay, autism, or congenital anomalies. It increases diagnostic yield for patients with developmental delay or intellectual disability. In some countries, including Korea, CMA testing is not yet implemented in clinical practice. We assessed the diagnostic utility of CMA testing in a large cohort of patients with developmental delay or intellectual disability in Korea. ⋯ This study demonstrated the clinical utility of CMA testing in the genetic diagnosis of patients with developmental delay or intellectual disability. CMA testing should be included as a clinical diagnostic test for all children with developmental delay or intellectual disability.
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Wisteria floribunda agglutinin-positive Mac-2 binding protein (WFA-M2BP) is a protein with altered glycosylation that reacts with lectin, and was recently identified as a useful non-invasive biomarker for the diagnosis of liver fibrosis in patients with hepatitis C virus infection.This study aimed to evaluate the diagnostic efficacy of WFA-M2BP for liver fibrosis in the context of hepatitis B virus (HBV). ⋯ WFA-M2BP can support a diagnosis of liver fibrosis with similar diagnostic efficacy to other biomarkers, and predicted liver fibrosis stage ≥2 among patients with chronic hepatitis B.
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We examined the feasibility of a full-length gene analysis for the drug resistance-related genes inhA, katG, rpoB, pncA, rpsL, embB, eis, and gyrA using ion semiconductor next-generation sequencing (NGS) and compared the results with those obtained from conventional phenotypic drug susceptibility testing (DST) in multidrug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MDR-TB) isolates. ⋯ Ion semiconductor NGS could detect reported and novel amino acid changes in full coding regions of eight drug resistance-related genes. However, genotypic DST should be complemented and validated by phenotypic DSTs.