How to use quality indicators for antimicrobial stewardship in your hospital: a practical example on outpatient parenteral antimicrobial therapy.

Background: Antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) teams are responsible for performing an AMS programme in their hospitals that aims to improve the quality of antibiotic use. Measuring the quality of antimicrobial use is a core task of a stewardship team. Measurement provides insight into the current quality of antibiotic use and allows for the establishment of goals for improvement.

Cell-mediated immune responses to inactivated trivalent influenza-vaccination are decreased in patients with common variable immunodeficiency.

Influenza-specific cell-mediated immune (CMI) responses can protect from influenza, but may be decreased in CVID-patients since defects in CMI responses have been demonstrated in CVID-patients. Therefore CMI responses were evaluated in 15 CVID-patients and 15 matched healthy controls (HC) by determining frequencies of interferon (IFN)γ-producing PBMC, and frequencies of IFNγ-, interleukin (IL)-2- and tumour necrosis factor (TNF)α-producing CD4+ and CD8+ T-cells before and after influenza vaccination using IFNγ enzyme-linked immunospot (IFNγ-ELISpot) and flow cytometry. Humoral responses were determined using haemagglutination inhibition assay.

Patients with humoral primary immunodeficiency do not develop protective anti-influenza antibody titers after vaccination with trivalent subunit influenza vaccine.

Yearly influenza vaccination is recommended for patients with humoral primary immunodeficiency (hPID). However, humoral responses following vaccination can be expected to be reduced in these patients. The efficacy of influenza vaccination in patients with hPID, anti-influenza antibody responses was assessed in 26 patients with hPID and 26 matched healthy controls (HC) using hemagglutination inhibition assay.

Glutamate-rich protein (GLURP) induces antibodies that inhibit in vitro growth of Plasmodium falciparum in a phase 1 malaria vaccine trial.

The glutamate-rich protein (GLURP) of P. falciparum is the target of cytophilic antibodies which are significantly associated with protection against clinical malaria. A phase 1 clinical trial was conducted in healthy adult volunteers with the long synthetic peptide (LSP) GLURP(85-213) combined with either Aluminum Hydroxide (Alum, 18 volunteers) or Montanide ISA 720 (ISA, 18 volunteers) as adjuvants.

Testing vaccines in human experimental malaria: statistical analysis of parasitemia measured by a quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction.

Clinical trials are an essential step in evaluation of safety and efficacy of malaria vaccines, and human experimental malaria infections have been used for evaluation of protective immunity of Plasmodium falciparum malaria. In this study, a quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction was used to measure P. falciparum malaria parasitemia in non-immune volunteers who had been experimentally infected by mosquito bites.

The influence of efavirenz on the pharmacokinetics of a twice-daily combination of indinavir and low-dose ritonavir in healthy volunteers.

Objective: This study evaluated the effect of multiple-dose efavirenz on the steady-state pharmacokinetics of the combination of indinavir (800 mg) and low-dose ritonavir (100 mg) twice a day, in which ritonavir is used to increase indinavir plasma concentrations.

Methods: Eighteen healthy male volunteers participated in this multiple-dose, 1-arm, 2-period interaction study. They took a combination of 800 mg indinavir and 100 mg ritonavir with food for 15 days.