The role of chemotherapeutic drugs in the evaluation of breast tumour response to chemotherapy using serial FDG-PET.

Introduction: The aims of this study were to investigate whether drug sequence (docetaxel followed by anthracyclines or the drugs in reverse order) affects changes in the maximal standard uptake volume (SUVmax) on [18F]fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) during neoadjuvant chemotherapy in women with locally advanced breast cancer.

Methods: Women were randomly assigned to receive either drug sequence, and FDG-PET scans were taken at baseline, after four cycles and after eight cycles of chemotherapy. Tumour response to chemotherapy was evaluated based on histology from a surgical specimen collected upon completion of chemotherapy.

Antimicrobial resistance in Helicobacter pylori isolates from children.

Objective: To determine the resistance rate to four antimicrobial agents commonly used in the treatment of Helicobacter pylori infection in children.

Methods: Between July 1997 and January 2000, all H. pylori isolates from children undergoing gastroscopy were prospectively collected and subcultured to yield the susceptibility to four antimicrobial agents by E-test.

Detection of extended spectrum beta-lactamases in the routine clinical microbiology laboratory.

Aims: To compare three methods of confirming the presence of an extended spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) enzyme with the initial detection (i.e., screening) by the Vitek AMS.

Bacteremia due to Leptotrichia trevisanii sp. nov.

A thin, filamentous, non-motile, aerotolerant, anaerobic, gram-negative bacterium was isolated from the blood of a 46-year-old man who was diagnosed as having acute myeloid leukemia. The organism had a positive catalase reaction but was negative in indole and oxidase tests. A commercially available system failed to identify the bacterium, but 16S rRNA gene sequencing showed it to be most closely related (97% similarity) to a recently isolated Leptotrichia sp.