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Bone Marrow Transplant. 2001 Jan;27(2):201-5.
Aerobic bacterial and fungal infections in peripheral blood stem cell transplants.

Aksu G, Ruhi MZ, Akan H, Bengisun S, Ustun C, Arslan O, Ozenci H.

Ankara University Faculty of Medicine, Department of Hematology, Turkey.

Allogeneic and autologous peripheral blood stem cell transplants are frequently complicated by infections. This study was performed to evaluate early and late infections in 74 patients who underwent peripheral blood stem cell transplantation (PBSCT). Fifty-eight patients received allogeneic and 16 autologous PBSCT. All patients received fluconazole, ciprofloxacin and acyclovir prophylaxis. 93.1% of alloPBSCT patients and 87.5% of autoPBSCT patients developed fever. Febrile episodes were commonly seen in the week of transplantation (66%). There was a median of 3 days with fever in alloPBSCT, and 2 days in autoPBSCT. Period of neutropenia was 15 days for AlloPBSCT and 12 days for AutoPBSCT. The microbiological identification rate was 47% (32/68). Gram-positive infections dominated the early period (50%) and Gram-negative bacterial infections dominated the late period (50%). All our patients had Hickman-type catheters and 26 infections involving catheters were seen. Sixteen occurred in the early, and 10 in the late period. Ten of 14 (71.4%) late bacterial infections were catheter-related. The dominance of Gram-positive infections and high rates of methicillin resistance warranted the use of vancomycin extensively. Surveillance cultures were found to be useful in selected patients. Although slime factor is an important virulence factor, there was no difference between slime factor positive and negative coagulase-negative staphylococci isolated during infections. In conclusion, febrile episodes are the most frequent complication of PBSCT and Gram-positive microorganisms remain the main pathogen in these patients because of catheter use, mucositis and ciprofloxacin prophylaxis. Methicillin resistance is increasing and glycopeptides remain the only choice for treating such infections. Although the infection rate is high, measures taken to prevent and treat infections result in very low rates of mortality from infection in PBSCT patients.

online pharmacy ref source: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11281391&dopt=Abstract




Neurologia. 2001 Mar;16(3):112-7.
[Neurologic complications of herpes zoster. A retrospective study in 100 patients]

[Article in Spanish]

Sanchez-Guerra M, Infante J, Pascual J, Berciano J, Polo J.

Servicio de Neurologia. Hospital Universitario Marques de Valdecilla, Santander.

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES: The neurologic complications associated with herpes zoster are infrequent except for postherpetic neuralgia. The aim of this study was to review the clinical profile and the distribution of these complications in a retrospective series of patients. PATIENTS AND METHOD: A retrospective analysis of the last 100 patients admitted with the diagnosis of herpes zoster with neurologic complications to our center from 1992 to 1999 by the Departments of Internal Medicine and Neurology was performed. The characteristics of the complications other than postherpetic neuralgia are reported. RESULTS: Aside from the 88 patients with postherpetic neuralgia, the 12 remaining patients presented other complications: seven different peripheral neuropathies, including three with Ramsay-Hunt syndrome, two meningitis, one encephalitis and one myelitis. In addition, one patient had ophthalmic herpes zoster with cerebral vasculopathy as ipsilateral Wallenberg's syndrome. Nine patients (75%) were males, four (25%) were under the age of 20 years and seven older than 60 years and only three were immunodepressed. The CSF was abnormal in six out of the eight patients in whom it was studied with lymphocytic pleocytosis being shown on analysis without qualitative or quantitative alteration in intrathecal synthesis of IgG. In the immunosuppressed patients the serology in the CSF of the varicela zoster virus was negative. All patients demonstrated regressive evolution following treatment with acyclovir. CONCLUSIONS: Neurologic complications other than postherpetic neuralgia occurred in 12% of the patients of this series, there was male predominance and peripheral neuropathies were the most frequent complications. Serology of the varicela zoster virus in immunosuppressed patients may be negative. In this series the prognosis was mainly satisfactory.

online pharmacy ref source: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11333780&dopt=Abstract




Eur J Nucl Med. 2001 Jun;28(6):721-9.
Comparison of [18F]FHPG and [124/125I]FIAU for imaging herpes simplex virus type 1 thymidine kinase gene expression.

Brust P, Haubner R, Friedrich A, Scheunemann M, Anton M, Koufaki ON, Hauses M, Noll S, Noll B, Haberkorn U, Schackert G, Schackert HK, Avril N, Johannsen B.

Institute of Bioinorganic and Radiopharmaceutical Chemistry, Forschungszentrum, Rossendorf, Germany.

Various radiotracers based on uracil nucleosides (e.g. [124I]2'-fluoro-2'-deoxy-5-iodo-1-beta-D-arabinofuranosyluracil, [124I]FIAU) and acycloguanosine derivatives (e.g. [18F]9-[(3-fluoro-1-hydroxy-2-propoxy) methyl] guanine, [18F]FHPG) have been proposed for the non-invasive imaging of herpes simplex virus type 1 thymidine kinase (HSV1-tk) reporter gene expression. However, these radiotracers have been evaluated in different in vitro and in vivo models, precluding a direct comparison. Therefore, we directly compared [18F]FHPG and radioiodinated FIAU to assess their potential for PET imaging of transgene expression. The uptake of [125I]FIAU, [18F]FHPG and [3H]acyclovir was determined in vitro using four different HSV1-tk expressing cell lines and their respective negative controls. The in vitro tracer uptake was generally low in non-transduced parental cell lines. In HSV1-tk expressing cells, [3H]acyclovir showed approximately a twofold higher tracer accumulation, the [18F]FHPG uptake increased by about sixfold and the [125I]FIAU accumulation increased by about 28-fold after 120-min incubation of T1115 human glioblastoma cells. Similar results were found in the other cell lines. In addition, biodistribution and positron emission tomography (PET) studies with [18F]FHPG and [124/125I]FIAU were carried out in tumour-bearing BALB/c mice. Significantly higher specific accumulation of radioactivity was found for [125I]FIAU compared with [18F]FHPG. The ratio of specific tracer accumulation between [125I]FIAU and [18F]FHPG increased from 21 (30 min p.i.) to 119 (4 h p.i.). PET imaging, using [124I]FIAU, clearly visualised and delineated HSV1-tk expressing tumours, whereas only a negligible uptake of [18F]FHPG was observed. This study demonstrated that in vitro and in vivo, the radioiodinated uracil nucleoside FIAU has a significantly higher specific accumulation than the acycloguanosine derivative [18F]FHPG. This suggests that [124I]FIAU should be the preferred reporter probe for PET imaging of HSV1-tk gene expression. Thus, further attempts to develop suitable PET tracers for the assessment of HSV1-tk gene expression should also focus on 18F-labelled uracil derivatives.

online pharmacy ref source: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11440032&dopt=Abstract













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