Penetration of linezolid into the pleural cavity in critically ill patients with proven or suspected Gram-positive bacterial infections: a retrospective pharmacokinetic study.

Objectives: To describe the pharmacokinetics (PK) of linezolid in plasma and pleural fluid (PF) in critically ill patients with proven or suspected Gram-positive bacterial infections.

Patients And Methods: Observational PK study in 14 critically ill patients treated with linezolid at standard doses. Blood and PF samples were collected and analysed by HPLC.

Development and validation of a clinical risk model for postoperative outcome in newly diagnosed glioblastoma: a report of the RANO resect group.

Background: Following surgery, patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma frequently enter clinical trials. Nuanced risk assessment is warranted to reduce imbalances between study arms. Here, we aimed (I) to analyze the interactive effects of residual tumor with clinical and molecular factors on outcome and (II) to define a postoperative risk assessment tool.

Trends in Antimicrobial Consumption in Tertiary Care Hospitals in Costa Rica from 2017 to 2021: A Comparative Analysis of Defined Daily Doses per 100 Bed Days and per 100 Discharges.

: Antimicrobial consumption (AMC) data in Latin America are scarce and usually spread out across different sources used to make AMC calculations, making it difficult to both standardize and compare regions through similar time frames. The main objective was to analyze AMC trends in Social Security tertiary care hospitals in Costa Rica in the period spanning January 2017 to December 2021, using both the defined daily dose (DDD)/100 bed days and DDD/100 discharges. : This is a retrospective observational study of antimicrobial consumption.

Alterations in functional brain connectivity associated with developmental dyscalculia.

Background And Purpose: In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the study of resting neural networks in different neurological and mental disorders. While previous studies suggest that the default mode network (DMN) may be altered in dyscalculia, the study of resting-state networks in the development of numerical skills, especially in children with developmental dyscalculia (DD), is scarce and relatively recent. Based on this, this study examines differences in resting-state functional connectivity (rs-FC) data of children with DD using functional connectivity multivariate pattern analysis (fc-MVPA), a data-driven methodology that summarizes properties of the entire connectome.

New Predictive Equation for the Estimation of Plasma Concentrations of Formed Colistin in Patients Treated With Colistimethate Sodium for Multidrug-Resistant Gram-Negative Bacterial Infections.

Background: The clinical use of colistin methanesulphonate (CMS) is limited by potential nephrotoxicity. The selection of an efficient and safe CMS dose for individual patients is complicated by the narrow therapeutic window and high interpatient pharmacokinetic variability. In this study, a simple predictive equation for estimating the plasma concentration of formed colistin in patients with multidrug and extremely drug-resistant gram-negative bacterial infections was developed.

Dispensation of outpatient hospital medicines by hospital only versus hospital-community pharmacies collaboration: a cross-sectional study and survey of patient's satisfaction.

Goal: To describe the experience of a dispensing model of outpatient hospital medicines (OHM) via collaboration of hospital and community pharmacies, and to explore patient satisfaction with the strategy as compared with the hospital pharmacy only service.

Background: Patient satisfaction is an important component of the quality of health care.

Study: A new model of dispensing OHM was conducted in the Outpatients Unit of the Service of Hospital Pharmacy of Hospital del Mar, in Barcelona, Spain.

Impact of an antimicrobial stewardship program indicator on the appropriateness of the empiric antibiotic treatment of urinary source Escherichia coli bacteraemia.

A prospective multicentre study was carried out between 2017 and 2021 to assess (1) the appropriateness of the empirical treatment to the local guidelines of urinary source Escherichia coli bacteraemia, (2) the appropriateness of empirical treatment to antibiotic sensitivity results and (3) the degree of error in the local guidelines regarding the antibiotic sensitivity reported in acute care hospitals enrolled in the vigilància de les infeccions relacionades amb l'atenció sanitària de Catalunya program. During the study period, 79.0% of the empirical treatments analysed complied with the guidelines and 88.

Benchmarking palliative care practices in neurooncology: a german perspective.

Purpose: To benchmark palliative care practices in neurooncology centers across Germany, evaluating the variability in palliative care integration, timing, and involvement in tumor board discussions. This study aims to identify gaps in care and contribute to the discourse on optimal palliative care strategies.

Methods: A survey targeting both German Cancer Society-certified and non-certified university neurooncology centers was conducted to explore palliative care frameworks and practices for neurooncological patients.

How to use meropenem in pediatric patients undergoing CKRT? Integrated meropenem pharmacokinetic model for critically ill children.

Standard dosing could fail to achieve adequate systemic concentrations in ICU children or may lead to toxicity in children with acute kidney injury. The population pharmacokinetic analysis was used to simultaneously analyze all available data (plasma, prefilter, postfilter, effluent, and urine concentrations) and provide the pharmacokinetic characteristics of meropenem. The probability of target fT > MIC attainment, avoiding toxic levels, during the entire dosing interval was estimated by simulation of different intermittent and continuous infusions in the studied population.

Off- to in-season body composition adaptations in elite male and female endurance and power event athletics competitors: an observational study.

Background: Monitoring elite athletes' body composition (BC) is vital for health and optimizing performance in sports emphasizing leanness, such as athletics. This study aims to investigate and compare sex- and event-specific off-to in-season BC changes in endurance and power event athletics competitors.

Methods: Elite male and female endurance athletes (> 800 m runners; n = 21) and power event athletes (sprinters, jumpers; n = 32) underwent dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) scans for whole and regional lean mass (LM), fat mass (FM), bone mineral content (BMC), and density (BMD) during off-season (September-October) and in-season (April-May).

Evolutionary trajectories of small cell lung cancer under therapy.

The evolutionary processes that underlie the marked sensitivity of small cell lung cancer (SCLC) to chemotherapy and rapid relapse are unknown. Here we determined tumour phylogenies at diagnosis and throughout chemotherapy and immunotherapy by multiregion sequencing of 160 tumours from 65 patients. Treatment-naive SCLC exhibited clonal homogeneity at distinct tumour sites, whereas first-line platinum-based chemotherapy led to a burst in genomic intratumour heterogeneity and spatial clonal diversity.

Long-term impact of COVID-19 pandemic on antibiotic use in primary care: lessons to optimize antimicrobial use.

Background: Lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with changes in the pattern of use of antimicrobials, but persistence of changes after lockdowns has not been described. The objective was to describe the number of patients with dispensed antibiotic treatment and consumption of antibiotics in outpatients from primary care in Catalonia 18 months after the end of the emergency period.

Research Design And Methods: Data for the COVID-19 pandemic period was obtained from March 2020 to December 2021.

DistSNE: Distributed computing and online visualization of DNA methylation-based central nervous system tumor classification.

The current state-of-the-art analysis of central nervous system (CNS) tumors through DNA methylation profiling relies on the tumor classifier developed by Capper and colleagues, which centrally harnesses DNA methylation data provided by users. Here, we present a distributed-computing-based approach for CNS tumor classification that achieves a comparable performance to centralized systems while safeguarding privacy. We utilize the t-distributed neighborhood embedding (t-SNE) model for dimensionality reduction and visualization of tumor classification results in two-dimensional graphs in a distributed approach across multiple sites (DistSNE).

Leveraging Attention-Based Convolutional Neural Networks for Meningioma Classification in Computational Histopathology.

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are becoming increasingly valuable tools for advanced computational histopathology, promoting precision medicine through exceptional visual decoding abilities. Meningiomas, the most prevalent primary intracranial tumors, necessitate accurate grading and classification for informed clinical decision-making. Recently, DNA methylation-based molecular classification of meningiomas has proven to be more effective in predicting tumor recurrence than traditional histopathological methods.

Colistin plasma concentrations are not associated with better clinical outcomes in patients with pneumonia caused by extremely drug-resistant .

In some cases, colistin is the only treatment option for infections caused by the very drug-resistant . However, in the past decade, there have been questions concerning its pharmacokinetics and concentration at the site of infection. In this scenario, its use in a difficult-to-treat infection like pneumonia is currently debatable.

Real-world experience of therapeutic drug monitoring and PK/PD achievement of ceftaroline administered by different infusion regimens in patients with confirmed infections caused by Gram-positive bacteria.

Background: Ceftaroline is a novel cephalosporin active against MDR Gram-positive (GP) bacteria. For β-lactam antibiotics, such as ceftaroline, prolonged infusions and therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) are used for dosage optimization based on their pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics (PK/PD).

Objectives: To describe our experience with TDM and PK/PD target attainment of ceftaroline administered by intermittent and prolonged infusion in a cohort of patients with MDR-GP bacterial infections.

Critical appraisal beyond clinical guidelines for intraabdominal candidiasis.

Background: Regardless of the available antifungals, intraabdominal candidiasis (IAC) mortality continues to be high and represents a challenge for clinicians.

Main Body: This opinion paper discusses alternative antifungal options for treating IAC. This clinical entity should be addressed separately from candidemia due to the peculiarity of the required penetration of antifungals into the peritoneal cavity.

Surgical management and outcome of newly diagnosed glioblastoma without contrast enhancement (low-grade appearance): a report of the RANO resect group.

Background: Resection of the contrast-enhancing (CE) tumor represents the standard of care in newly diagnosed glioblastoma. However, some tumors ultimately diagnosed as glioblastoma lack contrast enhancement and have a 'low-grade appearance' on imaging (non-CE glioblastoma). We aimed to (a) volumetrically define the value of non-CE tumor resection in the absence of contrast enhancement, and to (b) delineate outcome differences between glioblastoma patients with and without contrast enhancement.

Mapping the Ultrafast Mechanistic Pathways of Co Photocatalysts in Pure Water through Time-Resolved X-ray Spectroscopy.

Nanosecond time-resolved X-ray (tr-XAS) and optical transient absorption spectroscopy (OTA) are applied to study 3 multimolecular photocatalytic systems with [Ru(bpy) ] photoabsorber, ascorbic acid electron donor and Co catalysts with methylene (1), hydroxomethylene (2) and methyl (3) amine substituents in pure water. OTA and tr-XAS of 1 and 2 show that the favored catalytic pathway involves reductive quenching of the excited photosensitizer and electron transfer to the catalyst to form a Co square pyramidal intermediate with a bonded aqua molecule followed by a Co square planar derivative that decays within ≈8 μs. By contrast, a Co square pyramidal intermediate with a longer decay lifetime of ≈35 μs is formed from an analogous Co geometry for 3 in H O.

Reducing the duration of antibiotic therapy in surgical patients through a specific nationwide antimicrobial stewardship program. A prospective, interventional cohort study.

Background: Guidelines recommend 5-7 days of antibiotic treatment in patients with surgical infection and adequate source control. This nationwide stewardship intervention aimed to reduce the duration of treatments in surgical patients to <7 days.

Methods: Prospective cohort study evaluating surgical patients receiving antibiotics ≥7 days in 32 hospitals.