[Tuberculous abscess of the thoracic wall secondary to nodular tuberculosis: Atypical presentation in an older adult]. / Absceso tuberculoso de pared torácica secundario a tuberculosis ganglionar; presentación atípica.

Tuberculosis (tb) of the chest wall is uncommon and it represents less than 5% of all cases of musculoskeletal tb and only 1-2% of tb. We present the case of an elderly woman with tb of the chest wall secondary to a nodal tb with an unusual presentation. The diagnosis of this entity is difficult because the disease often mimics other diseases such as pyogenic abscess, chest wall.

Nanoscale influence on photoluminescence and third order nonlinear susceptibility exhibited by ion-implanted Pt nanoparticles in silica.

A systematic study has been carried out to investigate photoluminescence and third order nonlinear ultraviolet properties exhibited by platinum nanoparticles nucleated in a high-purity silica matrix. The modification in the characteristic photoluminescence spectra of the nanocomposites, ranging between 400 and 600 nm, was obtained with the assistance of a thermal annealing process that changed the average size of the platinum nanoparticles. The influence of temperature, between 200 °C-1100 °C, during the thermal treatment of the nanostructures was analyzed. UV-vis spectroscopy studies corroborated changes in the optical absorption resonances of the ion-implanted samples after annealing, which could then be correlated with the average size of the nanoparticles. The estimated average size was also corroborated by transmision electron microscopy. For temperatures below 600 °C the system is mainly composed of ultra-small photoluminescent platinum nanoparticles. Larger platinum nanoparticles were formed at higher annealing temperatures but photoluminescence quenching was observed as the typical plasmonics response of larger metal nanoparticles started to emerge. The photoluminescence emission for samples with a particle size of less than 2 nm is enhanced approximately 12 fold with respect to the samples with a particle size in the range of 3-7 nm. Differences in the resulting photoluminescence spectra were revealed by substituting the participation of argon, hydrogen or nitrogen, as environmental gases for thermal annealing. A weak PL emission, featuring 1.5 nW at a laser excitation power of 800 µW, related to larger platinum nanoparticles was observed. New emission peaks emerging from the larger platinum nanoparticles were associated with possible hydrogen adsorption on the nanoparticles' surface. Third order nonlinear ultraviolet measurements were conducted using a time-resolved two-wave mixing method with self-diffraction at 355 nm wavelength. The observed self-diffraction decay time is less than 25 ps, regardless of the average size of the nanoparticles studied. The evolution of the self-diffracted intensities derived from temperature was also linked to the mean size of the nanoparticles in the samples. Comparative two-wave mixing evaluations also validated a modification in third order nonlinear susceptibility exhibited by annealed samples. An important role of the localized surface plasmon resonance phenomena associated with the platinum nanoparticles for photoluminescence and optical nonlinearities was identified. A proposed hypothetical electronic mechanism that may explain the exceptional optical transitions related to low-dimensional platinum systems is discussed.

[Outbreak of norovirus Group II in a military training center, Peru 2013]. / Brote de infección por norovirus del Grupo II en un centro de entrenamiento militar, Perú 2013.

We report an outbreak of norovirus(NoV) which occurred at a military training center in Peru. Thirteenstool samples that were taken from initial cases turned out positive for NoV GII by RT-PCR. A case-control study was performedto determine factorsassociated with infection.164 probable cases (45.2%clinical attack rate) were identified. The only factor associatedwith infection was "having shared room with a case" (ORa = 1.7; 95% CI 1.1 to 2.7).Epidemiological findings suggestthat the virus was spread person to person. Future investigations of outbreaks of diarrhea in Peru should consider the NoV as an etiologicagent.

Brote de infección por norovirus del grupo II en un Centro de Entrenamiento Militar, Perú 2013 / Outbreak of norovirus group II in a military training center, Peru 2013

Reportamos un brote de norovirus (NoV) ocurrido en un centro de entrenamiento militar peruano. Trece muestras de heces tomadas de casos iniciales resultaron positivas a NoV GII por RT-PCR. Se realizó un estudio caso-control para determinar factores asociados a la infección. Se identificó 164 casos probables (tasa de ataque clínica: 45,2%). El único factor asociado a la infección fue el ôhaber compartido habitación con un casoõ (ORa=1,7; IC95% 1,1 a 2,7). Los hallazgos epidemiológicos sugieren que el virus fue propagado persona a persona. Futuras investigaciones de brotes de diarrea en el Perú deberían considerar al NoV como un agente etiológico.

We report an outbreak of norovirus (NoV) which occurred at a military training center in Peru. Thirteen stool samples that were taken from initial cases turned out positive for NoV GII by RT-PCR. A case-control study was performed to determine factors associated with infection.164 probable cases (45.2% clinical attack rate) were identified. The only factor associated with infection was ôhaving shared room with a caseõ (ORa = 1.7; 95% CI 1.1 to 2.7).Epidemiological findings suggest that the virus was spread person to person. Future investigations of outbreaks of diarrhea in Peru should consider the NoV as an etiologic agent.

Assessing the impact of public health interventions on the transmission of pandemic H1N1 influenza a virus aboard a Peruvian navy ship.

BACKGROUND: Limited data exist on transmission dynamics and effectiveness of control measures for influenza in confined settings. OBJECTIVES: To investigate the transmission dynamics of a 2009 pandemic H1N1 influenza A outbreak aboard a Peruvian Navy ship and quantify the effectiveness of the implemented control measures. METHODS: We used surveillance data and a simple stochastic epidemic model to characterize and evaluate the effectiveness of control interventions implemented during an outbreak of 2009 pandemic H1N1 influenza A aboard a Peruvian Navy ship. RESULTS: The serological attack rate for the outbreak was 49·1%, with younger cadets and low-ranking officers at greater risk of infection than older, higher-ranking officers. Our transmission model yielded a good fit to the daily time series of new influenza cases by date of symptom onset. We estimated a reduction of 54·4% in the reproduction number during the period of intense control interventions. CONCLUSION: Our results indicate that the patient isolation strategy and other control measures put in place during the outbreak reduced the infectiousness of isolated individuals by 86·7%. Our findings support that early implementation of control interventions can limit the spread of influenza epidemics in confined settings.

Ablation and optical third-order nonlinearities in Ag nanoparticles.

The optical damage associated with high intensity laser excitation of silver nanoparticles (NPs) was studied. In order to investigate the mechanisms of optical nonlinearity of a nanocomposite and their relation with its ablation threshold, a high-purity silica sample implanted with Ag ions was exposed to different nanosecond and picosecond laser irradiations. The magnitude and sign of picosecond refractive and absorptive nonlinearities were measured near and far from the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) of the Ag NPs with a self-diffraction technique. Saturable optical absorption and electronic polarization related to self-focusing were identified. Linear absorption is the main process involved in nanosecond laser ablation, but non-linearities are important for ultrashort picosecond pulses when the absorptive process become significantly dependent on the irradiance. We estimated that near the resonance, picosecond intraband transitions allow an expanded distribution of energy among the NPs, in comparison to the energy distribution resulting in a case of far from resonance, when the most important absorption takes place in silica. We measured important differences in the ablation threshold and we estimated that the high selectiveness of the SPR of Ag NPs as well as their corresponding optical nonlinearities can be strongly significant for laser-induced controlled explosions, with potential applications for biomedical photothermal processes.

Anisotropic linear and nonlinear optical properties from anisotropy-controlled metallic nanocomposites.

High-energy metallic ions were implanted in silica matrices, obtaining spherical-like metallic nanoparticles (NPs) after a proper thermal treatment. These NPs were then deformed by irradiation with Si ions, obtaining an anisotropic metallic nanocomposite. An average large birefringence of 0.06 was measured for these materials in the 300-800 nm region. Besides, their third order nonlinear optical response was measured using self-diffraction and P-scan techniques at 532 nm with 26 ps pulses. By adjusting the incident light's polarization and the angular position of the nanocomposite, the measurements could be directly related to, at least, two of the three linear independent components of its third order susceptibility tensor, finding a large, but anisotropic, response of around 10(-7) esu with respect to other isotropic metallic systems. For the nonlinear optical absorption, we were able to shift from saturable to reverse saturable absorption depending on probing the Au NP's major or minor axes, respectively. This fact could be related to local field calculations and NP's electronic properties. For the nonlinear optical refraction, we passed from self-focusing to self-defocusing, when changing from Ag to Au.

Determination of the size distribution of metallic nanoparticles by optical extinction spectroscopy.

A method is proposed to estimate the size distribution of nearly spherical metallic nanoparticles (NPs) from optical extinction spectroscopy (OES) measurements based on Mie's theory and an optimization algorithm. The described method is compared against two of the most widely used techniques for the task: transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS). The size distribution of Au and Cu NPs, obtained by ion implantation in silica and a subsequent thermal annealing in air, was determined by TEM, grazing-incidence SAXS (GISAXS) geometry, and our method, and the average radius obtained by all the three techniques was almost the same for the two studied metals. Concerning the radius dispersion (RD), OES and GISAXS give very similar results, while TEM considerably underestimates the RD of the distribution.

Large optical birefringence by anisotropic silver nanocomposites.

A large optical birefringence of oriented Ag nanoellipsoids embedded in silica was measured using an ellipsometric technique. The two main surface plasmon resonances associated with the axes of the ellipsoid were tuned, allowing us to quantify the light transmission through the samples when placed and rotated between crossed and parallel polarizers. This birefringence can be physically associated with the selective optical absorption of one component of the linear polarization of the incident light with respect to the anisotropic axis of the sample, depending on the wavelength used to perform the measurement.

Ozonoterapia en SIDA / Ozone therapy in AIDS

Se estudió un paciente SIDA IIIc con fatiga, síndrome de mala absorción intestinal, polineuropatía, anemia, con glucosa, creatinina y tiempo de protombina elevados, conteo CD4 en 37 células carga viral en 2 400 000/mL, el cual venía recibiendo un cóctel de triple terapia retroviral, anemia de 10 g/L. Se le administró un ciclo de ozono por vía rectal, a dosis de 5 mg, junto con interferón, factor de transferencia y eritropoyetina recombinante. Al término del tratamiento se le realizó una evaluación final donde se encontró que desaparecieron la fatiga, las diarreas, la deshidratación y la anemia, aumentando 8 kg de peso y se normalizaron los valores de glucosa, creatinina y tiempo de protombina. Después de 3 meses de finalizado el tratamiento con ozono, continuando con la administración ininterrumpida de interferones y una tetraterapia antirretroviral, el conteo CD4 aumentó a 546 con 30 por ciento y la carga viral disminuyó a 1 700/mL. Se valoró el efecto del ozono como inmunomodulador y antimicrobiano potente en pacientes VIH/SIDA(AU)

Ozonoterapia en SIDA / Ozone therapy in AIDS

Se estudió un paciente SIDA IIIc con fatiga, síndrome de mala absorción intestinal, polineuropatía, anemia, con glucosa, creatinina y tiempo de protombina elevados, conteo CD4 en 37 células carga viral en 2 400 000/mL, el cual venía recibiendo un cóctel de triple terapia retroviral, anemia de 10 g/L. Se le administró un ciclo de ozono por vía rectal, a dosis de 5 mg, junto con interferón, factor de transferencia y eritropoyetina recombinante. Al término del tratamiento se le realizó una evaluación final donde se encontró que desaparecieron la fatiga, las diarreas, la deshidratación y la anemia, aumentando 8 kg de peso y se normalizaron los valores de glucosa, creatinina y tiempo de protombina. Después de 3 meses de finalizado el tratamiento con ozono, continuando con la administración ininterrumpida de interferones y una tetraterapia antirretroviral, el conteo CD4 aumentó a 546 con 30 por ciento y la carga viral disminuyó a 1 700/mL. Se valoró el efecto del ozono como inmunomodulador y antimicrobiano potente en pacientes VIH/SIDA

Anÿlisis cuantitativo del EEG en pacientes infectados por el virus de la inmunodeficiencia humana (VIH) / EEG quantitative analysis in VIH patients

Resumen

Absceso cerebral por Candida sp. que simula neurotoxoplasmosis en el curso del SIDA / Brain abscess due to Candida sp. presenting as cerebral toxoplasmosis in an AIDS patient

Se describe un paciente cubano de SIDA que a los 19 meses de sobrevida presenta un cuadro neurológico e imagenológico compatible con neurotoxoplasmosis que no mejoró con el tratamiento combinado de drogas antitoxoplásmicas y depletantes del sistema nervioso central (SNC), que en la autopsia practicada resultó ser un absceso por Candida sp.

Absceso cerebral por Candida sp. que simula neurotoxoplasmosis en el curso del SIDA / Brain abscess due to Candida sp. presenting as cerebral toxoplasmosis in an AIDS patient

Se describe un paciente cubano de SIDA que a los 19 meses de sobrevida presenta un cuadro neurológico e imagenológico compatible con neurotoxoplasmosis que no mejoró con el tratamiento combinado de drogas antitoxoplásmicas y depletantes del sistema nervioso central (SNC), que en la autopsia practicada resultó ser un absceso por Candida sp.

Anticuerpos anti-P24 y antígenos virales en secreciones biológicas de pacientes seropositivos para el virus de la inmunodeficiencia humana (VIH) / Anti-P24 antibodies and viral antigens in biological secretion among seropositive patients to HIV

Teniendo en cuenta la necesidad de desarrollar métodos de detección que informen acerca de las características epidemiológicas, que desde el punto de pronóstico y de clasificación tienen los seropositivos al virus de la inmunodeficiencia humana (VIH), se ha determinado la presencia de antígenos y anticuerpos relacionados con el VIH en 45 pacientes del grupo IV, 17 del grupo III y 33 del grupo II, ingresados bajo régimen sanatorial. El estudio se realizó a ciegas y la muestra fue escogida aleatoriamente. La positividad en cuanto a los antígenos detectados, se comportó como sigue: orina 3 por ciento , saliva 4,4 por ciento y plasma 4,7 por ciento . En cuanto a la detección de anticuerpos anti-p24 en dichas muestras fue mucho más relevante con el 88,4 por ciento en plasma, 43,3 por ciento en orina y 40 por ciento en saliva. De los resultados obtenidos se deriva la posibilidad real de encontrar marcadores virales y de respuesta inmune en fluidos biológicos de pacientes infectados con el virus, independientemente del grupo en que éstos se encuentren de acuerdo con la clasificación establecida por la Organización Mundial de la Salud

Manifestaciones bucales de pacientes infectados por el virus de la inmunodeficiencia humana / Oral manifestations in patients infected by the inmune deficiency virus

Se estudian las manifestaciones bucales de 243 pacientes infectados por virus de la inmunodeficiencia humana ingresados en el Sanatorio de Santiago de las Vegas. El 73,7 % corresponde al sexo masculino; el grupo de edad más afectado es el de 20 a 39 años. La lesión más frecuente y a su vez más caracterizada fue la leucoplasia pilosa con el 14,8 %, le sigue la candidiasis bucal con el 13,9 %. Con menos incidencia se presentó la enfermedad parodontal, aftosis, exulceraciones y estomatitis subprótesis. Los hallazgos de estas infecciones oportunistas son bajos en los pacientes cubanos, al compararlos con las informaciones internacionales, al parecer, por la atención a la salud bucal en un ambiente de estancia sanatorial. En un paciente se detectó un carcinoma epidermoide de la base de la lengua, confirmado su diagnóstico por citología. Se enfatiza en la importancia del examen sistemático del complejo bucal a todo paciente y en la necesidad de que el estomatólogo esté informado sobre las manifestaciones del síndrome de inmunodeficiencia adquirida