Outbreak of nosocomial infections with two different MRSA-strains involved: significance of genomic DNA fragment patterns in strains otherwise difficult to type.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus isolates from an outbreak of 17 cases of wound infection in a municipal hospital were typed by conventional methods, phage typing by three sets of phages, reverse phage typing and plasmid profiles, as well as by genomic DNA fragment patterns obtained after Sma-I digestion and pulsed-field electrophoresis. These isolates were non-typable by phages, only some were typable by reverse phage typing and were not uniform in plasmid profile. Only the genomic DNA fragment patterns resulted in a clear discrimination of 2 strains (12 isolates for the first and 7 isolates for the second).

[A rare cause of infection in chronic dialysis patients: Malta fever (febris undulans melitensis)].

A 45-years-old Greek patient developed septicaemia in his 10th year of hemodialysis treatment. Clinical investigation was directed first on bacterial infection of the arteriovenous shunt, on urosepsis or bronchopulmonary infection. Then, serologically (Widal's reaction and ELISA-test) and in different blood-cultures Brucella melitensis was detected as causative agent for Malta fever (Febris undulans).

Penetration of eight beta-lactam antibiotics into the peritoneal fluid. A pharmacokinetic investigation.

Serial serum and peritoneal fluid samples were taken after intravenous injection of cefuroxime sodium, cefoxitin sodium, cefotaxime sodium, cefoperazone sodium, ceftazidime, moxalactam disodium, mezlocillin sodium, and piperacillin sodium. Time-concentration curves were obtained for both pharmacokinetic compartments. The geometric mean of peritoneal fluid concentrations from eight to ten patients was used to define the time-concentrations curve for each substance.