The role of point-of-care tests in antibiotic stewardship for urinary tract infections in a resource-limited setting on the Thailand-Myanmar border.

Objective: Published literature from resource-limited settings is infrequent, although urinary tract infections (UTI) are a common cause of outpatient presentation and antibiotic use. Point-of-care test (POCT) interpretation relates to antibiotic use and antibiotic resistance. We aimed to assess the diagnostic accuracy of POCT and their role in UTI antibiotic stewardship.

Antibody deficiency in patients with ataxia telangiectasia is caused by disturbed B- and T-cell homeostasis and reduced immune repertoire diversity.

Background: Ataxia telangiectasia (AT) is a multisystem DNA-repair disorder caused by mutations in the ataxia telangiectasia mutated (ATM) gene. Patients with AT have reduced B- and T-cell numbers and a highly variable immunodeficiency. ATM is important for V(D)J recombination and immunoglobulin class-switch recombination (CSR); however, little is known about the mechanisms resulting in antibody deficiency severity.

B-cell replication history and somatic hypermutation status identify distinct pathophysiologic backgrounds in common variable immunodeficiency.

Common variable immunodeficiency disorder (CVID) is the most prevalent form of primary idiopathic hypogammaglobulinemia. Identification of genetic defects in CVID is hampered by clinical and immunologic heterogeneity. By flow cytometric immunophenotyping and cell sorting of peripheral B-cell subsets of 37 CVID patients, we studied the B-cell compartment at the B-cell subset level using the κ-deleting recombination excision circle assay to determine the replication history and the Igκ-restriction enzyme hot-spot mutation assay to assess the somatic hypermutation status.