In-vitro antifungal susceptibility testing of lanoconazole and luliconazole against Aspergillus flavus as an important agent of invasive aspergillosis.

Introduction: The incidence of Aspergillus infections has recently increased remarkably in certain tropical and sub-tropical countries, with Aspergillus flavus being identified as the leading cause of infections after A. fumigatus. Lanoconazole (LAN) and luliconazole (LUL) are currently approved for topical treatment of cutaneous fungal infections.

Effect of involved Aspergillus species on galactomannan in bronchoalveolar lavage of patients with invasive aspergillosis.

Purpose: The detection of galactomannan (GM) in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid is an important surrogate marker for the early diagnosis and therapeutic monitoring of invasive aspergillosis (IA), regardless of the involved species of Aspergillus. Here, we utilized the Platelia Aspergillus GM enzyme immunoassay (Bio-Rad) to evaluate the GM index in BAL fluid samples from patients with proven, probable or putative IA due to Aspergillusflavus versus Aspergillusfumigatus.

Methodology: In a prospective study between 2009 and 2015, 116 BAL samples were collected from suspected IA patients referred to two university hospitals in Tehran, Iran.

Nocardia isolation from clinical samples with the paraffin baiting technique.

Background: The genus Nocardia is a cause of infection in the lungs, skin, brain, cerebrospinal fluid, eyes, joints and kidneys. Nocardia isolation from polymicrobial specimens is difficult due to its slow growth. Several methods have been reported for Nocardia isolation from clinical samples.

Effects of crystal pixel size and collimator geometry on the performance of a pixelated crystal gamma-camera using Monte Carlo simulation.

Dedicated γ-cameras based on pixelated scintillators have long been used for breast tumor imaging. Intercrystal scattering (ICS) increases the background counting rate and degrades the image quality when small crystal pixels are used. Because of the small size of applied collimators, scattered radiation and septal penetration are high, and therefore collimator characteristics must be carefully considered.