Guidance to 2018 good practice: ARIA digitally-enabled, integrated, person-centred care for rhinitis and asthma.

AIMS: Mobile Airways Sentinel NetworK (MASK) belongs to the Fondation Partenariale MACVIA-LR of Montpellier, France and aims to provide an active and healthy life to rhinitis sufferers and to those with asthma multimorbidity across the life cycle, whatever their gender or socio-economic status, in order to reduce health and social inequities incurred by the disease and to improve the digital transformation of health and care. The ultimate goal is to change the management strategy in chronic diseases. METHODS: MASK implements ICT technologies for individualized and predictive medicine to develop novel care pathways by a multi-disciplinary group centred around the patients. STAKEHOLDERS: Include patients, health care professionals (pharmacists and physicians), authorities, patient's associations, private and public sectors. RESULTS: MASK is deployed in 23 countries and 17 languages. 26,000 users have registered. EU GRANTS 2018: MASK is participating in EU projects (POLLAR: impact of air POLLution in Asthma and Rhinitis, EIT Health, DigitalHealthEurope, Euriphi and Vigour). LESSONS LEARNT: (i) Adherence to treatment is the major problem of allergic disease, (ii) Self-management strategies should be considerably expanded (behavioural), (iii) Change management is essential in allergic diseases, (iv) Education strategies should be reconsidered using a patient-centred approach and (v) Lessons learnt for allergic diseases can be expanded to chronic diseases.

Geolocation with respect to personal privacy for the Allergy Diary app - a MASK study.

BACKGROUND: Collecting data on the localization of users is a key issue for the MASK (Mobile Airways Sentinel networK: the Allergy Diary) App. Data anonymization is a method of sanitization for privacy. The European Commission's Article 29 Working Party stated that geolocation information is personal data.To assess geolocation using the MASK method and to compare two anonymization methods in the MASK database to find an optimal privacy method. METHODS: Geolocation was studied for all people who used the Allergy Diary App from December 2015 to November 2017 and who reported medical outcomes. Two different anonymization methods have been evaluated: Noise addition (randomization) and k-anonymity (generalization). RESULTS: Ninety-three thousand one hundred and sixteen days of VAS were collected from 8535 users and 54,500 (58.5%) were geolocalized, corresponding to 5428 users. Noise addition was found to be less accurate than k-anonymity using MASK data to protect the users' life privacy. DISCUSSION: k-anonymity is an acceptable method for the anonymization of MASK data and results can be used for other databases.

Piperacillin/tazobactam in the treatment of hospitalized patients with urinary tract infections: an open non-comparative and multicentered trial.

The aim of this multicentered, prospective and open study was to determine the clinical and bacteriological efficacy and safety of piperacillin/tazobactam (4g/500 mg IV tid) in the treatment of 79 adult patients with complicated urinary tract infections (UTI) requiring hospitalization. Forty-seven women and 32 men (mean age 54.2 years, and range 21-91) from 4 Argentinean and 6 Mexican hospitals were enrolled. Sixty-one clinically and bacteriologically evaluable patients were treated for a mean of 9.1 days (range 5-15). A favorable clinical response was seen in 83.6% and 80% at early and late assessment, respectively. Bacteriological eradication was achieved in 85.3% and 80% at early and late estimation, respectively. Escherichia coli was isolated in 33 cases, Klebsiella pneumoniae in 8, Enterococcus spp. in 7, Proteus mirabilis in 6, Pseudomonas aeruginosa in 3, Enterobacter spp. and Morganella morganii in 2. While 21% of all the clinical isolates were resistant to piperacillin, none of them was initially resistant to piperacillin/tazobactam. However, one female patient with a persistent UTI caused by E. coli developed resistance to piperacillin/tazobactam during treatment. A 64-year-old man with frontal meningioma developed purulent meningitis due to Enterobacter cloacae after neurosurgery. He was initially treated with ciprofloxacin, rifampin and amikacin and because of persistence of fever, he was moved to piperacillin/tazobactam. After 5 days of therapy, he developed coma secondary to intracranial hemorrhage and died. By then, the platelet count was normal (220,000/microliters), but the prothrombin time (19.5 seconds) and the partial thromboplastin time (63 seconds) were significantly prolonged. Our data suggest that piperacillin/tazobactam is a reliable therapy for complicated, non-complicated, community or hospital-acquired UTI.

Piperacillin/tazobactam in the treatment of lower respiratory tract infections: an open non-comparative and multicentered trial. Latin American Clinical Research Group.

The aim of this study was to determine the clinical and bacteriological efficacy and safety of piperacillin-tazobactam (PT) (4g/500 mg IV tid) in the treatment of 107 adult patients with lower respiratory tract infections (LRTI) requiring hospitalization. Patients included were 66 men and 41 women with a mean age of 55.2 years (range 18-89), enrolled from Mexican (6) and Argentinean (5) hospitals. Ninety-nine clinically evaluable patients (92.5%), 87 with pneumonia and 12 with bronchitis, were treated for a mean period of 9.3 and 7.3 days, respectively. Response to treatment was favorable in 94.3% cases with pneumonia and 100% of cases with bronchitis; 86 cases (80.3%) were bacteriologically evaluable, 77 with pneumonia (eradication 74, persistence 1, superinfection 2), and 9 with bronchitis (eradication in all). Streptococcus pneumoniae was recovered in 24, Klebsiella pneumoniae in 21, Staphylococcus aureus in 8, Haemophilus influenzae in 7, Pseudomonas aeruginosa in 5, Enterobacter spp. in 6, Escherichia coli in 6 and other organisms in 12. Toxicity or intolerance were not observed. Our data suggest that PT is a reliable therapy for severe LRTI.

Post-surgical nasal cellulitis outbreak due to Mycobacterium chelonae.

An outbreak of post-rhinoplasty nasal cellulitis due to Mycobacterium chelonae in a secondary care centre is described. A case-control study demonstrated that the use of inadequately sterilized surgical equipment in the Otorhinolaryngology Department was a risk factor. The causal organism was cultured from the equipment, from the surface of the operating theatre lamp, adhesive tape and from two of the hospital's general water tanks. Introduction of effective instrument sterilization methods, monitored with biological controls, the use of new air filters and cleansing and disinfection of hospital water tanks, were sufficient to control the outbreak. The antimicrobial susceptibilities of the causal organism were consistently different from those previously reported in M. chelonae.