Efficacy of vancomycin lock therapy for totally implantable venous access port-related infection due to coagulase-negative staphylococci in 100 patients with cancer.

Objectives: Data on the efficacy of vancomycin catheter lock therapy (VLT) for conservative treatment of totally implantable venous access port-related infections (TIVAP-RI) due to CoNS are scarce. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of VLT in the treatment of TIVAP-RI due to CoNS in cancer patients.

Methods: This prospective, observational, multicentre study included adults with cancer treated with VLT for a TIVAP-RI due to CoNS.

Acute microbiologically negative hypoxic interstitial pneumonia on HAART: Immune Reconstitution Inflammatory Syndrome unmasking Pneumocystis jiroveci infection with an atypical presentation.

Highly active antiretroviral therapy for AIDS sometimes engenders inflammatory manifestations resulting from an inappropriate and unbalanced immune-system restoration, called Immune Reconstitution inflammatory Syndrome, which, in turn, can unmask a subclinical infection/pathology. Despite our patient's evident syndrome, the atypical clinical, microbiologic and radiologic feature of Pneumocystis pneumonia made its diagnosis difficult.

Autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplant in systemic sclerosis: quantitative high resolution computed tomography of the chest scoring.

Objective: Using high resolution computed tomography (HRCT), to assess the lung involvement outcome after autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplant (AHSCT) in patients with scleroderma (systemic sclerosis, SSc).

Methods: HCRT scans prospectively performed before (n = 9 patients) and after (n = 47) AHSCT were blindly reviewed by 2 independent investigators using the Wells score.

Results: After a median 60 months' followup, the overall disease extent score from HCRT scans decreased from 10 (0-45) to 4 (0-36) (p = 0.