Predictive factors for a one-year improvement in nontuberculous mycobacterial pulmonary disease: An 11-year retrospective and multicenter study.

Background: Nontuberculous mycobacterial pulmonary disease (NTM-PD) has become an emerging infectious disease and is responsible for more deaths than tuberculosis in industrialized countries. NTM-PD mortality remains high in some series reportedly ranging from 25% to 40% at five years and often due to unfavorable evolution of NTM-PD despite established treatment. The purpose of our study was to search for early factors that could predict the favorable or unfavorable evolution of NTM-PD at the first year of treatment.

Epidemiology of sarcoidosis in Afro-Caribbean people: a 7-year retrospective study in Guadeloupe.

Background: There are no reliable epidemiological data on sarcoidosis in the French West Indies, although this disease is known to be more frequent and more severe in Black African-Americans and West Indians.

Objectives: This retrospective study aimed to assess the incidence and prevalence of sarcoidosis in Guadeloupe over a 7-year period and to determine its epidemiological, clinical, and evolutionary characteristics.

Methods: Patients were identified through the computerized databases of the three pathology laboratories and two hospitals on the islands of Guadeloupe.

A systematic follow-up of Mycobacterium tuberculosis drug-resistance and associated genotypic lineages in the French Departments of the Americas over a seventeen-year period.

THE population of the French Departments of the Americas (FDA) is highly influenced by the intense migratory flows with mainland france and surrounding countries of the Caribbean and Latin America, some of which have high incidence rates of tuberculosis (Haiti: 230/100,000; Guyana: 111/100,000; and Suriname: 145/100,000) and drug resistance. Since the development of drug resistance to conventional antituberculous drugs has a major impact on the treatment success of tuberculosis, we therefore decided to review carefully Mycobacterium tuberculosis drug resistance and associated genotypic lineages in the FDA over a seventeen-year period (January 1995-December 2011). A total of 1239 cases were studied, including 153 drug-resistant and 26 multidrug-resistant- (MDR-) TB cases, representing 12.

Short-term effects of the particulate pollutants contained in Saharan dust on the visits of children to the emergency department due to asthmatic conditions in Guadeloupe (French Archipelago of the Caribbean).

Background: The prevalence of asthma in children is a significant phenomenon in the Caribbean. Among the etiologic factors aggravating asthma in children, environmental pollution is one of the main causes. In Guadeloupe, pollution is primarily transported by Saharan dust including inhalable particles.

Overweight explains the increased red blood cell aggregation in patients with obstructive sleep apnea.

Sleep apnea patients and obese subjects are overexposed to cardiovascular diseases. These two health conditions may be associated with hemorheological alterations which could increase the cardiovascular risk. The present study investigated the hemorheological characteristics in patients with overweight and/or sleep apnea to identify the main predictor of red blood cell (RBC) abnormalities in sleep apnea patients.