[Is the a connection between prolonged carriage and clonal hospital-to-hospital clonal spread of multiresistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa of the O12 serotype? Are the specific habits of the hospitals involved the cause?].

Results obtained using our expert computer program (SIR, 12A, Montpellier, France) over the last seven years (1991-1998) suggest that the increased incidence of superficial pus infection or colonization with O12 Pseudomonas aeruginosa, together with the significantly longer carriage duration for this organism as compared to non O12. P. aeruginosa, may contribute to the current endemic clonal spread of O12 P.

Natural serum TNF antagonists in end-stage renal failure and following renal transplantation.

TNF is clearly involved in allograft rejection but measurement of serum cytokine levels do not reflect reliably the rejection crisis. TNF induces release of soluble receptor parts that are more stable, are catabolized by kidneys and have inhibitory activity. Thus it is crucial to analyse their kinetics during renal function recovery after transplantation to forecast their potential clinical use in rejection monitoring or treatment.

[Monitoring of renal grafts. Value of the determination of serum neopterin and neopterin versus creatinine ratio].

In a longitudinal study, 53 renal allograft recipients were investigated for changes in serum creatinine and neopterin levels and in the neopterin/creatinine (N/C) ratio which makes it possible to disregard the glomerular filtration level. The patients were divided into 5 groups according to their clinical situation: stability, acute renal failure due to acute tubular necrosis, acute graft rejection, bacterial or viral infection and cyclosporin overdosage. Only N/C discriminated between these situations, being normal (less than 200.