The Journal of infection
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The Journal of infection · Jan 2014
ReviewAdvances towards the prevention of meningococcal B disease: a multidimensional story.
Whilst much progress has been made in reducing the burden of bacterial meningitis and septicaemia through vaccination, endemic serogroup B meningococcal (MenB) disease has remained problematic. Polysaccharide-protein conjugate vaccines are now available to protect against Haemophilus influenzae type b, Neisseria meningitidis serogroups A, C, Y and W and thirteen serotypes of Streptococcus pneumoniae, but this approach has not been used for MenB. Instead efforts have been made to identify protein antigens which, when used in vaccines, will prevent MenB infection and possibly disease due to other serogroups too. The first such vaccine has recently been licensed.
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The Journal of infection · Jan 2014
Observational StudyDifferential time to positivity is not predictive for central line-related Staphylococcus aureus bloodstream infection in routine clinical care.
Many physicians rely on differential time to positivity (DTP) when diagnosing catheter-related bloodstream infection (CRBSI). We evaluated whether DTP from routine blood cultures can predict catheter-related Staphylococcus aureus bloodstream infection. ⋯ The low test performance suggests that DTP is not useful in diagnosing CRBSI in routinely obtained blood cultures. Therefore, physicians should not solely rely on DTP and rather promote catheter removal and culture.
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The Journal of infection · Dec 2013
Value of sTREM-1, procalcitonin and CRP as laboratory parameters for postmortem diagnosis of sepsis.
Triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells-1 (TREM-1) was reported to be up-regulated in various inflammatory diseases as well as in bacterial sepsis. Increased cell-surface TREM-1 expression was also shown to result in marked plasma elevation of the soluble form of this molecule (sTREM-1) in patients with bacterial infections. In this study, we investigated sTREM-1, procalcitonin and C-reactive protein in postmortem serum in a series of sepsis-related fatalities and control individuals who underwent medico-legal investigations. sTREM-1 was also measured in pericardial fluid and urine. ⋯ Postmortem serum sTREM-1, individually considered, did not provide better sensitivity and specificity than procalcitonin in detecting sepsis. However, simultaneous assessment of procalcitonin and sTREM-1 in postmortem serum can be of help in clarifying contradictory postmortem findings. sTREM-1 determination in pericardial fluid can be an alternative to postmortem serum in those situations in which biochemical analyses are required and blood collected during autopsy proves insufficient.