[Importance of hemolysis on neuron-specific enolase measurement].

The aim of this work is to establish a pre-analytical approach suitable for the neuron-specific enolase (NSE) measurement. This enzyme which is synthesized by neurons and neuroendocrine cells, is a marker useful for the diagnosis and the monitoring of patients with neuroendocrine tumors (neuroblastoma, small cell lung cancer) and during stroke to assess neuronal damage. This NSE measurement is very sensitive to hemolysis due to the abundance of the enzyme in red blood cells.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus subtyping: interest of combined antibiotyping and esterase electrophoretic typing.

Ninety-four methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus isolates (MRSA) were characterized by means of two typing methods, antibiotyping and esterase electrophoretic typing. Antibiotyping, recorded on the basis of susceptibility testing of 13 antimicrobial agents, allowed the description of 18 antibiotypes, four of which comprised 30, 14, 14 and 12 strains respectively. Esterase electrophoretic typing, based on esterase activity against seven synthetic substrates after polyacrylamide-agarose gel electrophoresis, led to the description of 12 electrophoretic types, two of which were predominant with 60 and 20 strains respectively.

[Outbreak of infections of Klebsiella pneumoniae with extended spectrum beta-lactamase in a hospital unit with a long and medium stay].

Fourteen extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ES beta la) Klebsiella pneumoniae strains were isolated from 14 inpatients between February 1993 and February 1994, in a medium- and long-stay neurological unit. For this reason an epidemiological study was begun, based on strain typing and examination of patient files. Strain typing was carried out by two methods (i) the analysis of antibiotic resistance, showing 7 different antibiotypes among the 14 strains studied, (ii) the analysis of esterase and dehydrogenase electrophoretic polymorphism in polyacrylamide-agarose gel.