Perform hand hygiene and the doors will open - the effectiveness of new system implementation on paediatric intensive care unit visitors' handwashing compliance.

Hand hygiene (HH) performance on entering intensive care units (ICUs) is commonly accepted but often inadequately performed. We developed a simple, inexpensive module that connects touchless dispensers of alcohol sanitiser (TDAS) to the automatic doors of a paediatric ICU, and assessed the impact of this intervention on HH compliance of hospital staff and visitors. A prospective observational study was conducted over a 3-week period prior to the intervention, followed by a 4-week period post intervention.

Early, Real-Time Medical Diagnosis of Botulism by Endopeptidase-Mass Spectrometry.

Botulinum toxin was detected in patient serum using Endopeptidase-mass-spectrometry assay, although all conventional tests provided negative results. Antitoxin was administered, resulting in patient improvement. Implementing this highly sensitive and rapid assay will improve preparedness for foodborne botulism and deliberate exposure.

Optimization of human mtDNA control region sequencing for forensic applications.

Sequencing mitochondrial DNA hypervariable regions I and II (HVI and HVII) is useful in forensic missing person and unidentified remains cases. Improvements in ease and sensitivity of testing will yield results from more samples in a timely fashion. Routinely, amplification of HVI and HVII is followed by Sanger sequencing using the BigDye(®) Terminator v3.

Polystyrene microspheres as a specific marker for the diagnosis of aspiration in hamsters.

The diagnosis of recurrent aspiration in young children is problematic because there is no specific gold standard test to be used. In the present work, normal saline or a suspension of white polystyrene microspheres in normal saline was instilled into hamsters' trachea (n = 42), and bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) cytology, microsphere index (total microspheres/100 macrophages), and lung histology were followed for 90 d. Naive animals (n = 6) had no tracheal instillation.