Yield of yearly routine physical examination in HIV-1 infected patients is limited: A retrospective cohort study in the Netherlands.

Background: Routine physical examinations might be of value in HIV-infected patients, but the yield is unknown. We determined the diagnoses that would have been missed without performing annual routine physical examinations in HIV-infected patients with stable disease.

Methods: Data were collected from the medical records of 299 HIV-1-infected patients with CD4 count >350 cells/mm3 if not using combination antiretroviral therapy (cART), or CD4 count >100 cells/mm3 and undetectable viral load if using cART.

Microarrays-Enabled Hypothesis Generation: The Suspect Role of FNBP-1 in Neuropsychiatric Pathogenesis Associated with HIV and/or HCV Infection.

Objective: The spectrum of neuropsychiatric illness (NI) associated with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and/or the Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) is far reaching and significantly impacts the clinical presentation and outcome of infected persons; however, the etiological and pathophysiological background remains partially understood. The present work was aimed to investigate the potential significance of formin binding protein 1 (FNBP-1)-dependent pathways in NI-pathogenesis by elaborating on previous microarray-based research in HIV and/or HCV-infected patients receiving interferon-α (IFN-α) immunotherapy via a rigorous data mining procedure.

Methods: Using microarray data of peripheral whole blood (PB) samples obtained from HCV mono-infected persons (n=25, Affymetrix HG-U133A_2) 12 h before and after the 1 dose of pegylated IFN-α (PegIFN-α), we re-applied the same analytical algorithm that we had developed and published in an earlier study with HIV/HCV co-infected subjects (N=28, Affymetrix HG-U133A), in order to evaluate reproducibility of potential NI-related molecular findings in an independent cohort.

[Tracing patients with chronic viral hepatitis].

Objective: To investigate the effect of an intervention in which medical-microbiological laboratories alert general practitioners (GPs) in writing about patients with a chronic hepatitis B or C infection in their practice, urging them to bring these patients under medical surveillance again now that treatment options have improved and guidelines have been revised.

Design: Descriptive, prospective.

Method: All patients who had been diagnosed with hepatitis B or C between 2003 and 2013 on the request of the GP, and for whom diagnostics by an internist, infectious diseases specialist or gastrointestinal/liver specialist had never been requested, were included.

Louse-borne relapsing fever (Borrelia recurrentis) in asylum seekers from Eritrea, the Netherlands, July 2015.

Two patients from Eritrea, recently arrived in the Netherlands, presented with fever and were investigated for malaria. Bloodfilms showed spirochetes but no blood parasites. Louse-borne relapsing fever caused by Borrelia recurrentis was diagnosed.

Automatic day-2 intervention by a multidisciplinary antimicrobial stewardship-team leads to multiple positive effects.

Background: Antimicrobial resistance rates are increasing. This is, among others, caused by incorrect or inappropriate use of antimicrobials. To target this, a multidisciplinary antimicrobial stewardship-team (A-Team) was implemented at the University Medical Center Groningen on a urology ward.