In vitro susceptibility testing of Aspergillus spp. against voriconazole, itraconazole, posaconazole, amphotericin B and caspofungin / 中华医学杂志(英文版)

<p><b>BACKGROUND</b>During recent years, the incidence of serious infections caused by opportunistic fungi has increased dramatically due to alterations of the immune status of patients with hematological diseases, malignant tumors, transplantations and so forth. Unfortunately, the wide use of triazole antifungal agents to treat these infections has lead to the emergence of Aspergillus spp. resistant to triazoles. The present study was to assess the in vitro activities of five antifungal agents (voriconazole, itraconazole, posaconazole, amphotericin B and caspofungin) against different kinds of Aspergillus spp. that are commonly encountered in the clinical setting.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>The agar-based Etest MIC method was employed. One hundred and seven strains of Aspergillus spp. (5 species) were collected and prepared according to Etest Technique Manuel. Etest MICs were determined with RPMI agar containing 2% glucose and were read after incubation for 48 hours at 35°C. MIC(50), MIC(90) and MIC range were acquired by Whonet 5.4 software.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The MIC(90) of caspofungin against A. fumigatus, A. flavus and A. nidulans was 0.094 µg/ml whereas the MIC(90) against A. niger was 0.19 µg/ml. For these four species, the MIC(90) of caspofungin was the lowest among the five antifungal agents. For A. terrus, the MIC(90) of posaconazole was the lowest. For A. fumigatus and A. flavus, the MIC(90) in order of increasing was caspofungin, posaconazole, voriconazole, itraconazole, and amphotericin B. The MIC of amphotericin B against A. terrus was higher than 32 µg/ml in all 7 strains tested.</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>The in vitro antifungal susceptibility test shows the new drug caspofungin, which is a kind of echinocandins, has good activity against the five species of Aspergillus spp. and all the triazoles tested have better in vitro activity than traditional amphotericin B.</p>

The Application of PBL Teaching Mode in the Theory Teaching of Microbiology / 微生物学通报

PBL teaching method is a new mode of teaching which is originated from the West and implemented into China in recent years with an expectation that it would mainly develop the students’ self-learning ability,and enhance their skills of comprehensive thinking and solving actual problems.The author summarizes the practical experience of using PBL teaching methods in the theory teaching in Department of Medical Microbiology and Human Parasitology,China Medical University in the past three years,and then proved this method is very helpful to improving the students’integrated thinking by analysis of sample.At the same time the results also suggested that the students showed high enthusiasm in discussing the cases.By this way,the students showed great subjective intiative in their studies.

Model Case Design for Problem-based Learning in Medical Microbiology and Human Parasitology / 微生物学通报

Problem-based learning(PBL)is an important part of creative education in medical colleges.Choice and design of cases are of the vital importance to success or failure of PBL course.To enhance students' ability of independent,creative thinking,and their ability of analyzing and solving problems,the roles of primitive cases and model cases as well as interrelation between them were discussed respective- ly.Moreover,five basic principles to be followed in model case design for PBL in Medical Microbiology and Human Parasitology,i.e.objec- tivity,flexibility,consistency,illumination and relevance,were proposed in this study.