ABSTRACT
S. pneumoniae is a significant cause of community-acquired pneumonia in the elderly, and accounts for the majority of the pneumonia deaths among the elderly. We conducted this randomized double-blind study to evaluate the immune response to a 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine and the persistence of antibodies two years after the vaccination in an elderly population in Santiago, Chile. A total of 118 elderly nursing home residents received either the pneumococcal or a tetanus control vaccine. Serum samples were taken at enrollment, at two months, and at two years post-vaccination. Pre-vaccination anti-pneumococcal antibody geometric mean concentrations (GMC) were similar in both study groups, with increased levels of antibodies found only against serotype 14. The pneumococcal vaccine was highly immunogenic at 2 months, and titers remained high two years after the vaccination for the 10 serotypes studied in this elderly population. The results thus support the benefits of this pneumococcal vaccine in this elderly population who are at increased risk of invasive pneumococcal disease.
Subject(s)
Pneumococcal Infections/prevention & control , Pneumococcal Vaccines/immunology , Streptococcus pneumoniae/immunology , Aged , Aged, 80 and over , Antibodies, Bacterial/blood , Case-Control Studies , Chile , Double-Blind Method , Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay , Female , Homes for the Aged , Humans , Immunoglobulin G/blood , Male , Middle Aged , Pneumococcal Infections/immunologyABSTRACT
El Comité de Normas de la Society of Critical Care Medicine, ha recientemente efectuado una revisión que se detalla a continuación y que servirá como una guía para los hospitales, en la formulación de las normas que servirán a modo de referencia, para diseñar nuevas unidades de cuidados intensivos o para modificar las actualmente existentes. Cada unidad debería elaborar sus propias normas de ingreso y de egreso de pacientes, utilizando el modelo que aquí se presenta solamente como una pauta. Por lo demás cada hospital debiera desarrollar su propia estrategia para poder acomodar pacientes cuando la UCI se encuentra completa, las que deben periódicamente ser revisadas
