Publications by authors named "Melike Yasar"
While severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) continues to spread rapidly worldwide, some issues such as the uncertainty of the disease progress, whether intensive care will be needed, and risk classification are still important for clinicians. It is notable that in countries where latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) is common and participating in the national Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccination program, the case-fatality rates are relatively low throughout the world. In this study, it was aimed to evaluate the effects of the BCG vaccine and LTBI status on the course of the disease in patients diagnosed with coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) infection and to compare the LTBI rate with people with and without COVID-19 infection.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Echinocandin resistance rarely occurs in clinical Candida parapsilosis isolates and the underlying mechanism is unknown.
Objectives: To determine the prevalence of echinocandin resistance and the underlying mechanism for a large collection of C. parapsilosis blood isolates and to determine whether the echinocandin-resistant isolates were clonally related.
Article Synopsis
- Candidemia caused by specific fungi is now the fourth leading cause of infection in Turkey, with an increase in azole-non-susceptible (ANS) strains prompting a study to assess antifungal susceptibility.
- A study of 161 blood isolates revealed that while most were still susceptible to echinocandins and amphotericin B, 18.6% exhibited ANS characteristics, and 52 showed high fluconazole tolerance (HFT).
- Patients with ANS and HFT infections had higher rates of therapeutic failure, highlighting a concerning rise in resistant strains and the need for public health interventions in Turkey.
Article Synopsis
- * About 27% of these isolates were FLZR, with many harboring mutations that contribute to their resistance, particularly the Y132F mutation, which is linked to higher mortality and lower biofilm production.
- * The study compared two typing methods for identifying FLZR clonal relationships, finding that microsatellite typing (MST) is more effective than amplified fragment length polymorphism typing (AFLP) in outbreak scenarios.
Article Synopsis
- Candida glabrata is a significant cause of bloodstream infections in Turkey, but there is limited understanding of how it resists antifungal drugs and its genetic variation.
- A study involving 107 patient isolates showed an increase in Candida glabrata cases and identified unique mutations linked to high fluconazole resistance, resulting in therapeutic failures.
- It is recommended to include genetic testing for resistance markers alongside antifungal susceptibility testing to improve treatment predictions, indicating a need for further research in the area.
Being a member of the Enterobacteriaceae family, Klebsiella pneumoniae is an opportunistic pathogen that inhabits normal human microbiota and causes predominantly hospital-acquired infections. The emergence of K.pneumoniae isolates which are resistant particularly to the carbapenem group of antibiotics has led to an increase in hospitalization period, mortality and morbidity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe aims of this study were to evaluate the sensitivity of QuantiFERON®-TB Gold in Tube (QFT) test and its agreement with the tuberculin skin test (TST), to investigate possible factors associated with indeterminate QFT test results and to explore the relationship between latent tuberculosis infection (LTBE) prevalence and the rate of tuberculosis (TB) cases in our region. 1455 cases with QFT test performed in Ege University Faculty of Medicine Hospital between 2013 and 2015 were included in the study and simultaneously TST results of 268 of 1455 cases were reached. TST results were evaluated according to both ≥ 10 mm and ≥ 15 mm cut-off values.
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