Comparison of vancomycin assays in patients undergoing hemodialysis.

Vancomycin is a glycopeptide antibiotic mainly excreted by glomerular filtration. Therefore, patients undergoing hemodialysis tend to accumulate its crystalline degradation product, which has been associated with cross-reaction in commercial immunoassays. The aim of this study was to assess the performance of two commercial immunoassays for measuring vancomycin levels in patients undergoing hemodialysis.

Vancomycin and creatinine determination in dried blood spots: Analytical validation and clinical assessment.

This study aims to develop a liquid chromatography tandem-mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method for vancomycin and creatinine measurement in dried blood spots (DBS) and to evaluate its clinical application. The analytes were extracted from DBS and analyzed by LC-MS/MS. Vancomycin and creatinine DBS and plasma concentrations were compared in 54 and 35 samples, respectively, from 29 patients.

Lack of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus nasal carriage among patients at a primary-healthcare unit in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

Introduction: Community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) has emerged as a pathogen in individuals without traditional risk factors.

Material And Methods: MRSA nasal carriage was assessed in individuals consulting at a Primary Health Unit in Brazil.

Results: A total of 336 individuals were included: 136 were tested only for MRSA and 200 for any S.

Clinical and molecular epidemiology of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus carrying SCCmecIV in a university hospital in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

We evaluated clinical outcomes and molecular epidemiology of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus carrying SCCmecIV recovered from patients who attended at a teaching hospital from Porto Alegre, Brazil. All Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL)-producer isolates belonged to clonal complex (CC) 30 (11 isolates, related to Oceania Southwest Pacific clone [OSPC]), and the PVL-negative isolates were typed as CC5 (2 isolates, related to the pediatric clone). Five patients had health care-associated infections (HCAIs) with hospital-onset, 5 HCAIs with community-onset, and 3 community-acquired infections without risks.