ABSTRACT
Objective To establish the model of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA) and assay the influence on the host defense against Aspergillus infection when immunity was suppressed in mice.Methods Immunocompromised mice were made by treatment with cyclophosphamide administered intraperitoneally (i.p.).Suspension of conidia was applied to the nostrils of mice to make the model of IPA.Lungs were harvested and homogenized.Portions of homogenates were cultured to determine the number of CFU.IFN-? in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid was determined by a cytokine-specific ELISA kit.Reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR) analysis was done to determine the mRNA of IFN-? in lung cells.Mortality of different rice was calculated.Results Compared with immunocompetent mice,the immunocompromised mice demonstrated a high mortality and had significantly higher concentration of infectious Aspergillus organisms in their lung tissues.In accordance with the increase of Aspergillus organisms,the levels of IFN-? in lung tissues got higher.Lung sections from immunocompromised mice revealed patterns of lesions characterized by signs of bronchial wall damage,peribronchial necrosis,and the presence of numerous infiltrating inflammatory cells.Conidia and hyphae were seen in these mice.In contrast,these features were not observed in immunocompetent mice whose lungs were characterized by few inflammatory cells infiltration,and few fungal growth after inoculation.Conclusion The levels of IFN-? in lung tissues are related to the infectious Aspergillus organisms.The immunity and T cells play a major role in host defense against Aspergillus infection.
ABSTRACT
ObjectiveTo predict the opportunity of infection and evaluate the severity of illness and prognosis for patients with lower resp iratory tract infections in intensive care unit (ICU) using the acute physiology and chronic health evaluation Ⅲ (APACHEⅢ) MethodsThe clini cal data of 115 cases with infections of pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) in lowe r respiratory tract and 116 cases without PA infections were analyzed and evalua ted with APACHEⅢ score system ResultsAPACHEⅢ scores of non -survivors were significantly higher than those of survivors [(55 29?15 83) vs (25 97?14 39),P
ABSTRACT
<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To characterize the differences between clinical manifestations in immunocompromised patients (ICPs) and non-immunocompromised patients (non-ICPs) with tuberculosis.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Underlying diseases, clinical presentations, misdiagnosis, treatment and prognosis, etc, were analyzed retrospectively in 115 tuberculosis patients, including 39 ICPs and 76 non-ICPs.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Compared with non-ICPs, the individuals who were ICP had more expectoration (64.1% vs 35.5%), pulmonary moist rale (41.0% vs 9.2%), miliary pulmonary tuberculosis (30.8% vs 2.6%), pleural effusion (48.7% vs 25.0%) and lymphadenopathy (18.0% vs 4.0%). ICPs had less lung cavity (15.4% vs 22.4%) and pleural thickening (15.4% vs 23.7%) compared to non-ICPs. Pulmonary tuberculosis in ICPs was prone to be misdiagnosed as pneumonia (23.1% vs 6.6%). Pulmonary tuberculosis was found in the apicoposterior segment (SI + SII) in more cases in non-ICPs (21.7%, 10/46) than ICPs (10.3%, 3/29). The diagnostic value of tuberculin skin test and adenosine deaminase in pleural effusions was limited in ICPs. ICPs had significantly poorer prognoses than non-ICPs.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The clinical manifestations of ICPs with tuberculosis are atypical, misdiagnosis often occurs, resulting in a worse prognosis.</p>