[Present and future perspectives for the rapid molecular diagnosis of TB and MDR-TB].

Tuberculosis is still one of the diseases with a major medical and social impact, and in terms of early diagnosis (which would imply a fair treatment and established at the time), difficulties related to the delay bacilli isolation in culture, decreased susceptibility testing methods to antituberculosis drugs, lack of methods for differentiation of M. Tuberculosis complex germs of non-TB Mycobacteria, may have important clinical implications. Traditional testing of anti-TB drug susceptibility on solid Löwenstein-Jensen medium (gold standard) or liquid media can only be performed using grown samples.

[The present and future prospects in rapid molecular diagnosis of tuberculosis and MDR-TB (First Part)].

Tuberculosis is still one of the diseases with a major medical and social impact, and in terms of early diagnosis (which would imply a fair treatment and established at the time), difficulties related to the delay bacilli isolation in culture, decreased susceptibility testing methods to antituberculosis drugs, lack of methods for differentiation of M. Tuberculosis complex germs of non TB Mycobacteria, may have important clinical implications. Traditional testing of anti-TB drug susceptibility on solid Löwenstein-Jensen medium (gold standard) or liquid media can only be performed using grown samples.

[Unilateral salpingian and ovarian TB, a rare form of extrapulmonary TB].

TB salpingitis and ovarian TB is a rare association of extrapulmonary tuberculosis, especially when the lesions are not associated with lung involvement. The correct therapy leads to the sterilization of the tuberculosis foci, although the risk of scars and adhesions is high, causing local functional disorders.

Comparison of tuberculin skin test with a whole-blood interferon gamma assay and ELISA, in HIV positive children and adolescents with TB.

We compared the usefulness of three methods designed to diagnose latent tuberculosis [TB]: interferon-gamma release assay [IGRA], such as QuantiFERON-TB Gold [QFT-G], Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay [ELISA] serologic assay and tuberculin skin test [TST] for diagnosis of TB in human immunodeficiency virus [HIV]-1 infected children and adolescents, with microbiologically and/or histopathologically confirmed TB co-infection. The serum samples were obtained from 36 patients who were examined and tested by the three methods. The sensitivity was 38.

[Tuberculosis in Romania between 2006-2008].

The high level of TB incidence places Romania among first places in Europe and on the first place in European Union; in the last years a slowly, but hopefully descending trend can be observed (from 114.2 per hundred thousand in 2006 to 109.8 per hundred thousand in 2007 and 108 per hundred thousand in 2008).

[Multidrug resistant tuberculosis in Romania in the last years (2004-2007)--an extremely important social phenomenon].

The emergence of resistance to drugs used to treat tuberculosis (TB), and particularly multidrug resistant (MDR-TB) strains, has become a significant public health problem in a number of countries and an obstacle to effective global TB control. In many other countries, the extent of drug resistance is unknown and the management of the patients with MDR-TB is inadequate. In countries where drug resistance has been identified, specific measures need to be taken within TB control programmes to address the problem through appropriate management of patients and adoption of strategies to prevent the propagation and dissemination of drug resistant TB, including MDR-TB.

Respiratory pathogens in dental plaque of hospitalized patients with chronic lung diseases.

Bacterial cultivation studies have shown that dental plaque is a reservoir for respiratory pathogens in intensive care unit patients and in elderly who are debilitated, hospitalized or in a nursing home, placing them at risk of bacterial pneumonia. No information is available, however, concerning dental plaque as a reservoir of putative respiratory pathogens in hospitalized patients with chronic lung diseases. Supragingival plaque colonization of 34 hospitalized chronic lung-diseased Romanian citizens, excluding those with tuberculosis and less than 20 teeth, was therefore assessed by checkerboard DNA-DNA hybridization using a selected panel of whole genomic DNA probes produced from eight respiratory pathogens and eight oral pathogens.