Quantiferon vs. tuberculin testing in detection of latent tuberculous infection among chronic renal failure patients

Latent tuberculous infection [LTBI] lacks a solid gold standard in its diagnosis and many clinicians rely upon tuberculin testing, however there has been an increasing interest in depending on Interferon Gamma Release Assays especially Quantiferon-Gold [QFT-G]. Since chronic renal failure [CRF] poses an important health problem in Egypt and taking into consideration the immuno compromisation caused by this condition, LTBI detection emerged as an important health concern in those patients. In this study, the aim was to find which tool was better in the detection of LTBI in CRF patients. Forty patients with chronic renal failure and on hemodialysis, with exclusion of active tuberculosis and other immuno compromisation conditions were tested for LTBI by tuberculin skin test [TST] and QFT-G. 25% of the tested showed LTBI. It was found that although both tests gave comparable results, yet there was a discrepancy between both. TST + /QFT + group was 10%, TST + /QFT- group was 5%, TST-/QFT+ was 10% and TST-/QFT- group was 75%.In Chronic renal failure and probably any immuno compromisation setting, it would be better to perform both tuberculin and Quantiferon tests to detect latent tuberculous infection

Evaluation of efficacy and toxicology of once daily versus twice daily regimens of amikacin in mice

Five organisms were used in this study to induce septicemia. Each organism was used to infect 2 groups of mice. One group received amikacin as a single daily dose, the other group received the same daily amount of amikacin split in two doses every 12 hours. Every day, 2 representatives of each group were sacrificed. To test for efficiency, the spleen was dissected aseptically and placed in exactly 2 ml sterile saline for bacterial count. To test for toxicity both kidneys were examined by light microscopy, and serum creatinine was determined in heart blood. The 2 regimens were found to be equally effective in eradicating infection. Also, both regimens showed no pathologic changes in the kidney by light microscopy, even when mice received high doses of the drug for 10 days. Serum creatinine level showed no change when the drug was given in therapeutic doses by both regimens. But when high doses were used, there was a statistically significant increase in creatinine level with the split dose regimen. Thus, amikacin given as a single daily dose is as effective as the split dose, but is safer specially for patients with border-line kidney function treated for longer periods