[Active search and assessment of cardiovascular risk factors in young adults, Cartagena de Indias, 2007].

Introduction: Extensive clinical and statistical studies suggest that individuals with high overall cardiovascular risk in midlife can be identified by their relatively higher values of risk factors at younger ages.

Objectives: To estimate the prevalence and clustering of recognized biological and behavioral cardiovascular disease risk factors among young adults in a neighborhood in Cartagena de Indias. Methods.

Hidden in plain sight: macrophage activation syndrome complicating Adult Onset Still's Disease.

Hemophagocytic Lymphystiocytosis is a rare and fatal complication of rheumatic diseases, particularly Adult Onset Still's Disease (AOSD). It may be precipitated with immunosuppressive drugs and with viral and bacterial infections. A diagnosis depends on a high index of suspicion associated to certain clinical manifestations (fever, rash, Splemomegaly, any cytology blood dyscrasia, hipertrigliceridemia, hiperfibrinogenemia, and others), as well as pathologic evidence of hemophagocitosis from bone marrow biopsy or tissue samples of affected organs.

[Pathogenesis and environmental factors in ventilator-associated pneumonia].

Respiratory infections in intubated patients can derive from endogenous or exogenous sources. The major route for acquiring endemic ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is oropharyngeal colonization by endogenous flora and leakage of contaminated secretions into the lower respiratory tract. However, a not inconsiderable percentage of VAP results from exogenous nosocomial colonization, especially pneumonias caused by resistant bacteria such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and multiresistant Acinetobacter baumannii or Pseudomonas aeruginosa, as well as by Legionella spp or filamentous fungi, such as Aspergillus.