Brucellosis: an occupational hazard for medical laboratory personnel. Report of five cases.

Five cases of laboratory-acquired infection with Brucella melitensis are reported. This pathogen is highly contagious when handled in the laboratory. Clinicians should alert technologists when brucellosis is suspected so that specimens are handled under the most stringent safety measures. Serological surveys and instructions of laboratory workers regarding the clinical diversity of the disease are helpful for early recognition of secondary cases. On the other hand, clinicians should consider brucellosis in medical laboratory workers with unexplained signs and symptoms.

Occurrence and phenotypic properties of verotoxin producing Escherichia coli in sporadic cases of gastroenteritis.

Five verotoxin producing Escherichia coli strains were detected in 405 patients with infectious gastroenteritis and 3 such strains were detected in 11 patients with the hemolytic uremic syndrome in Switzerland. Production of verotoxin 2 was associated with the latter three strains. Four strains reacted with the probe for the virulence plasmid of Escherichia coli O157:H7, and six reacted with a recently described probe for the eae gene of enteropathogenic Escherichia coli. None of the strains was of serotype O157:H7. The methods available at present for detecting toxins or toxin genes will reliably detect all such verotoxin producing strains.

[Triplane fractures of the lower shin bone in children and adults]. / Die "triplane fracture" am unteren Schienbeinende bei Kindern und Jugendlichen.

The author reports an unusual combined lesion of epiphysiolysis and fracture of the distal tibial epiphyseal plate. Commonly one describes 3 types of this lesion, which present in the X-ray-diagnosis identical pictures although the bone fragments have quite different relationship concerning their topography. In the literature 88 cases of such a lesion are reported till now, the author describes 15 patients from 1973 to 1981. Twelve of them with the average age of 14 1/2 years and the meantime of controls of 4 years have been controlled. In 2 patients the results are considered as not satisfying, where as in one case the cause was probably a false diagnosis and consecutive a false treatment, the other having premature ossification of epiphysis. The proposed treatment is mainly conservative in undisplaced fractures and operative in fractures with displacement over 1 mm.

Isolation of Clostridium botulinum type G and identification of type G botulinal toxin in humans: report of five sudden unexpected deaths.

Clostridium botulinum type G has not been identified until now from humans or animals; it has been isolated only twice, from soil samples in Argentina. Type G organisms were isolated from necropsy specimens in four adults and an 18-week-old infant. Type G botulinal toxin was demonstrated in the serum of three of these individuals. The toxic dose in mice ranged from 2 to 7 50% lethal doses/ml. These persons died suddenly and unexpectedly at home, without any pathologic evidence to account for the cause of death in four cases. Symptoms in two individuals were similar to those observed in food-borne botulism. Thus, a prompt postmortem search for toxin and organisms of C. Botulinum in blood and feces may be worthwhile in determining the etiology of unexplained deaths. More microbiologic, physiologic, and toxicologic data are needed to clarify the role of C. botulinum in the pathogenesis of sudden unexpected death in infants and adults.