Comparison of COVID-19 hospitalization costs across care pathways: a patient-level time-driven activity-based costing analysis in a Brazilian hospital.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic raised awareness of the need to better understand where and how patient-level costs are incurred in health care organizations, as health managers and other decision-makers need to plan and quickly adapt to the increasing demand for health care services to meet patients' care needs. Time-driven activity-based costing offers a better understanding of the drivers of cost throughout the care pathway, providing information that can guide decisions on process improvement and resource optimization. This study aims to estimate COVID-19 patient-level hospital costs and to evaluate cost variability considering the in-hospital care pathways of COVID-19 management and the patient clinical classification.

Interleukin-7 Unveils Pathogen-Specific T Cells by Enhancing Antigen-Recall Responses.

Background: Interleukin (IL)-7 promotes the generation, expansion, and survival of memory T cells. Previous mouse and human studies showed that IL-7 can support immune cell reconstitution in lymphopenic conditions, expand tumor-reactive T cells for adoptive immunotherapy, and enhance effector cytokine expression by autoreactive T cells. Whether pathogen-reactive T cells also benefit from IL-7 exposure remains unknown.

A new antigen scanning strategy for monitoring HIV-1 specific T-cell immune responses.

Delineation of the immune correlates of protection in natural infection or after vaccination is a mandatory step for vaccine development. Although the most recent techniques allow a sensitive and specific detection of the cellular immune response, a consensus on the best strategy to assess their magnitude and breadth is yet to be reached. Within the AIDS Vaccine Integrated Project (AVIP http://www.

The rise and fall of intermittent interleukin-2 therapy in HIV infection.

In 1995, a breakthrough paper showed that intermittent cycles of interleukin-2 (IL-2), together with suboptimal ART, caused an unprecedented, stable increase in CD4+ T cell counts, without altering the steady state levels of viremia. At the time, this was somewhat obscured by the first successes of combination antiretroviral therapy (cART). However, since then, numerous studies have confirmed this basic finding, opening up a new perspective in the long-term management of chronic HIV infection.

ELISPOT-IFN-gamma assay instead of tuberculin skin test for detecting latent Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection in rheumatic patients candidate to anti-TNF-alpha treatment.

In rheumatic patients candidate to anti-TNF-alpha treatment, there is an increased risk of developing tuberculosis (TB). The tuberculin skin test (TST), the standard diagnostic test for latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI), suffers low specificity and sensitivity. Here, we compared the performance characteristics of an in-house ELISPOT-IFN-gamma assay (using a restricted pool of Mycobacterium tuberculosis-specific peptides or MTP) to TST for the diagnosis of LTBI in 69 rheumatic patients candidate to anti-TNF-alpha treatment and in 60 healthy LTBI individuals.