Horizontal transmission of Streptococcus pneumoniae in the surgical ward: a rare source of nosocomial wound infection.

Streptococcus pneumoniae is rarely isolated from nosocomial infections. We report an outbreak of 4 nosocomial-acquired surgical site infections due to S pneumoniae after retropubic simple prostatectomy. The likely source was detected in the rhinopharynx of the surgeon.

Clinical significance and prognostic value of chromatin assembly factor-1 overexpression in human solid tumours.

Aims: Chromatin assembly factor-1 (CAF-1), whose function is critical for maintaining chromatin stability during DNA replication and repair, has been identified as a proliferation marker in breast cancer. The aim was to investigate CAF-1 as a proliferation marker in a wide variety of solid tumours, and to assess its potential value in predicting clinical outcome.

Methods And Results: Using immunocytochemistry on paraffin-embedded tissue sections, the CAF-1 labelling index was compared with known proliferation markers Ki-67 and minichromosome maintenance (MCM), and its association with clinicopathological data and patients' outcome analysed.

Transplantation of hematopoietic stem cells and long-term survival for primary immunodeficiencies in Europe: entering a new century, do we do better?

Background: Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation remains the only treatment for most patients with severe combined immunodeficiencies (SCIDs) or other primary immunodeficiencies (non-SCID PIDs).

Objective: To analyze the long-term outcome of patients with SCID and non-SCID PID from European centers treated between 1968 and 2005.

Methods: The product-limit method estimated cumulative survival; the log-rank test compared survival between groups.

Gene coexpression analysis in single cells indicates lymphomyeloid copriming in short-term hematopoietic stem cells and multipotent progenitors.

Progressive restriction to a differentiation pathway results from both activation and silencing of particular gene expression programs. To identify the coexpression and the expression levels of regulatory genes during hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) differentiation toward the T cell branch, we applied a new single-cell RT-PCR technique to analyze the simultaneous expression of 13 genes in 9 functionally purified populations from the bone marrow and the thymus. We report in this paper that Lin(-)Sca1(+)ckit(+) HSCs display, at the single-cell level, a homogeneous and high transcriptional activity as do early thymic progenitors.

Urokinase-type plasminogen activator and plasminogen-activator-inhibitor type 1 predict metastases in good prognosis breast cancer patients.

Unlabelled: This retrospective analysis was designed to confirm the predictive role of urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA) and plasminogen activator inhibitor type I (PAI-1) in the outcome of early stage, node-negative breast cancer patients.

Patients And Methods: Node-negative patients having not received adjuvant chemotherapy, and for whom frozen samples were available, were selected.

Results: Among the 169 patients included, 56.

Short- and long-term efficacy of levamisole as adjunctive therapy in childhood nephrotic syndrome.

Many children with steroid-dependent nephrotic syndrome (NS) have significant sequelae despite steroid-sparing therapies. Levamisole may reduce short-term relapse frequency (RF) with minimal side effects. Little data exist, however, as to its long-term effect.