[Degree of emergency for antibiotherapy in patients with presumed bacterial meningitis: experimental and clinical data].

No prospective randomized clinical studies are available to determine exactly how much time should be spent on investigation before initiating antibiotherapy in a patient with presumed bacterial meningitis. Experimental models show that antibiotics should be administered before the inflammatory response, but at this time the patient's symptoms are often unspecific. Models also demonstrate that a gain of time is beneficial at any time, in terms of inflammation, magnitude of bacteremia, or loss of hearing.

Results of the ALBI trial: a randomized comparison of stavudine/didanosine, zidovudine/lamivudine and alternating treatment in antiretroviral-naive patients.

In the ALBI trial, 151 antiretroviral-naive patients with plasma human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) RNA levels of 10,000 to 100,000 copies/ml and CD4 cell counts > or = 200 cells/mm3 received 24 weeks of treatment with stavudine/didanosine (n=51), zidovudine/lamivudine (n=51) or stavudine/didanosine for 12 weeks followed by zidovudine/lamivudine (n=49). Baseline plasma HIV-1 RNA and CD4 cell counts were comparable in the treatment groups. The mean decrease in plasma HIV-1 RNA at 24 weeks in the stavudine/didanosine group (2.

Disseminated infection due to Encephalitozoon cuniculi in a patient with AIDS: case report and review.

Objective And Methods: Infections due to microsporidia are increasingly recognized as opportunistic infections in patients with AIDS. We describe here a case of disseminated infection due to Encephalitozoon cuniculi and review the literature on this microsporidial infection.

Results: All 12 patients reported in the literature had AIDS and nine presented with disseminated infection involving the kidneys, sinuses, lungs, brain and conjunctiva.