ABSTRACT
The rapid diagnosis and management of bacterial infection are heavily dependent upon clinical assessment. Blood culture may take up to 2 days for results and may be suspect. Surface neutrophil CD64 expression has been shown to be upregulated in cases of bacterial infection. Recently, a standardized kit for the CD64 index was used in neonatal intensive care units, showing high sensitivity and specificity for bacterial infections. Our study was designed to confirm and extend these results to adult hospital patients and to determine the impact of this testing on a clinical laboratory's finances and staffing. CD64 indices were performed with peripheral blood drawn in tandem with blood cultures from 109 patients over a 2-month period. We found that a CD64 index of
Subject(s)
Bacterial Infections , Neutrophils/metabolism , Receptors, IgG/metabolism , Sepsis , Adult , Bacterial Infections/diagnosis , Bacterial Infections/immunology , Bacterial Infections/microbiology , Blood/microbiology , Culture Media , Flow Cytometry/economics , Humans , Neutrophils/immunology , Predictive Value of Tests , Sensitivity and Specificity , Sepsis/diagnosis , Sepsis/immunology , Sepsis/microbiology , Up-RegulationABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Acute rejection of human small bowel allografts is characterized by clinical symptoms combined with characteristic morphologic alterations. The typical geographic distribution of acute rejection in the bowel is involvement of the intestinal parenchyma, which can be transmural, particularly when the rejection is more severe. However, little is known concerning the potential for donor-derived soft tissue adjacent to the bowel to become involved by the host alloimmune response. METHODS: We describe a male patient who, several weeks after combined small bowel and liver transplantation, demonstrated sclerosing mesenteritis with vasculitis and acute rejection of the bowel. RESULTS: The vascular lesions in the mesentery demonstrated increased IgG deposition and the patient developed an alloantibody to the donor. CONCLUSIONS: The changes described herein may represent a novel presentation of acute vascular rejection.
Subject(s)
Graft Rejection/pathology , Intestine, Small/pathology , Intestine, Small/surgery , Panniculitis, Peritoneal/pathology , Panniculitis, Peritoneal/surgery , Transplantation, Homologous/pathology , Acute Disease , Adult , Humans , Male , Parenteral Nutrition, Total , Reoperation , Sclerosis , Short Bowel Syndrome/pathology , Short Bowel Syndrome/surgeryABSTRACT
In this study the authors considered the effectiveness of thymus hormone in the prevention of acute infections within a group of elderly subjects affected by COPD. Ten subjects were considered, nine males and one female in the age included between 65 and 89 years (medium age = 70.2 +/- 6.96 years), with clinical evaluation and altered functional respiratory tests (FEV1 < 70%). The patients were treated with timopentina 50 mg s c three times a week for a month. The following parameters were considered: leucocytes/mm3; lymphocytes/mm3 in standard conditions, in the first and in the second month after the therapy start, contagious episodes two months before and two months after the beginning of therapy. The Authors noticed a real reduction in the relapses of the infectious episodes (11 relapses in the months before therapy and 2 relapses after therapy had begun). Leucocytes/mm3 rates were reduced (8.070 +/- 3.414 in standard conditions, 6.420 +/- 1.041 after 60 days; 0.2 < P < 0.1). Lymphocytes/mm3 rates were increased, 1.579 +/- 752 in standard conditions, 2103 +/- 491 after 60 days 0.2 < P < 0.1). These preliminary data seem to show in the small number of cases considered, the effectiveness of the thymus hormone (thymopentina) in elderly subjects affected by COPD.