Effectiveness and Safety of Micafungin in Managing Invasive Fungal Infections among Patients in Greece with Hematologic Disorders: The ASPIRE Study.

Introduction: Invasive candidiasis (IC) can be a life-threatening infection in immunocompromised patients, particularly those with cancer, hematologic diseases and/or hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) recipients. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of micafungin in patients with hematologic malignancies or HSCT recipients, relevant to clinical presentation of IC, in real-life practice in Greece.

Methods: ASPIRE was a phase IV, multicenter, non-interventional, prospective cohort study, conducted at ten tertiary hospitals in Greece, in adults with hematologic disease.

Anopheles immune genes and amino acid sites evolving under the effect of positive selection.

Background: It has long been the goal of vector biology to generate genetic knowledge that can be used to "manipulate" natural populations of vectors to eliminate or lessen disease burden. While long in coming, progress towards reaching this goal has been made. Aiming to increase our understanding regarding the interactions between Plasmodium and the Anopheles immune genes, we investigated the patterns of genetic diversity of four anti-Plasmodium genes in the Anopheles gambiae complex of species.