International good practices on central venous catheters' placement and daily management in adults and on educational interventions addressed to healthcare professionals or awake/outpatients. Results of a scoping review compared with the existent Italian good practices.

This scoping review aims to check the existing international literature related to the placement and management of central venous catheters (CVCs) in adults and compare them with the Good Practices published by the Italian Society of anesthesiology intensive care (hereafter "SIAARTI Good Practices") and the protocols written by the Italian Expert group on long-term central venous accesses (hereafter "GAVeCeLT Protocols") and verify the existence of experiences focused on the daily assessment of the implantation site and on educational interventions on awake patients or caregivers to enhance their empowerment. A systematic search approach has been applied. Our composite research question has been primarily defined by the PICO: only patients over 18 years of age with CVC for any clinical reason except for kidney replacement therapy; placement and management of CVCs with procedures recommended by the recent international guidelines/bundles and specific educational interventions are the interventions to be compared with standard CVC placement and management without any educational interventions.

Neonatal bacterial meningitis: a systematic review of European available data.

Introduction: Despite advances in neonatal intensive care and the improvements in surveillance, prevention and vaccination programs, neonatal meningitis still represents an important cause of morbidity and mortality in infants, with the highest mortality in the newborn population. The aim of this article was to summarize current knowledge about this topic with particular attention to management of neonatal meningitis in order to provide a useful tool for clinicians.

Evidence Acquisition: We reviewed the existent literature from five European Countries (France, German, Italy, Spain and UK) on the effectiveness of treatments for bacterial meningitis in newborns taking into consideration the antibiotic resistance phenomenon.

A randomized comparison of caspofungin versus antifungal prophylaxis according to investigator policy in acute leukaemia patients undergoing induction chemotherapy (PROFIL-C study).

Background: Invasive fungal infections (IFIs) are considered a major problem among patients undergoing acute leukaemia (AL) induction treatment. PROphylaxis of Fungal invasive Infections in Leukaemia-Caspofungin (PROFIL-C) is a multicentre study aiming to assess the comparative yield of using caspofungin versus standard policy (SP) regimens and the overall impact of IFI in routine clinical care conditions.

Methods: All AL patients receiving IFI prophylaxis according to local SP were prospectively included in the study by Northern Italy Leukaemia Group (NILG) centres.

Antidepressants and cardiovascular outcomes in patients without known cardiovascular risk.

Purpose: To identify a cohort of subjects without treatment for any cardiovascular risk and analyze the potential causative role of treatment for depression on the development of major cardiovascular outcomes during 2 years of follow-up.

Methods: We carried out a record-linkage analysis of hospital discharge records, prescription databases and vital statistics for all consecutive patients aged 30 years or older in one Italian region during a 4-year period. Depression was defined in terms of exposure to at least three prescriptions of antidepressant drugs within 1 year.