[Interest of real-time PCR Xpert MRSA/SA on GeneXpert(®) DX System in the investigation of staphylococcal bacteremia].

Aim Of The Study: Recently, a rapid, fully automated real-time PCR test has become available for detection of Staphylococcus aureus in positive blood cultures, Xpert MRSA/SA blood culture. This study was defined to evaluate the use of this product in our hospital setting to assist in optimizing antibiotic treatment.

Materials And Methods: Over a period of 18months (from February 2008 to July 2009), 51 positive blood cultures were examined for Staphylococcus using the Xpert MRSA/SA assay on the GeneXpert(®) System.

[Community- and non-community-acquired bacteremia: correlation between empiric antimicrobial therapy and susceptibility of micro-organisms isolated during 2007 in the Ile-de-France microbiologists network].

Aim Of The Study: To estimate the percentage of empirical treatments adapted in the bloodstream infections of community and not community origin and to determine the main circumstances in which this initial treatment is not adapted.

Patients And Methods: Surveillance of bloodstream infections from the laboratories of microbiology of the eight hospitals of the Ile-de-France network, during year 2007. The study concerned the patients hospitalised in medicine, surgery, obstetrics, intensive care, following care and rehabilitation, day hospitalisation, hospitalisation at home, who presented one or several episodes of bloodstream infections.

Evaluation of the Binax NOW Streptococcus pneumoniae urinary antigen assay in intensive care patients hospitalized for pneumonia.

Objective: To evaluate the diagnostic performance of Binax Now S. pneumoniae urinary antigen rapid immunochromatographic membrane test (ICT) for patients with suspicion of community-acquired pneumonia hospitalized in intensive care and to assess the impact of prior antibiotics on its diagnostic performance.

Design And Setting: Retrospective study in a medicosurgical ICU in a 700-bed general hospital.

[Cases of imported cholera in France, summer 2005. A. Tarantola for the incident management teams].

Cholera is a bacterial infection, which causes digestive symptoms and massive diarrhoea. It may lead to dehydration and death if appropriate medical management is not rapidly initiated. Most cases of infection by choleric vibrio, however, remain symptom-free or may mimic common gastroenteritis.

Pneumococcal meningitis in the intensive care unit: prognostic factors of clinical outcome in a series of 80 cases.

We have undertaken this retrospective study to determine factors associated with in-hospital mortality and morbidity in 80 adult patients with severe Streptococcus pneumoniae meningitis. Clinical characteristics at admission of patients infected with susceptible (n = 54) and nonsusceptible (n = 17) strains to penicillin G were similar: age: 51 +/- 19 versus 58 +/- 15 yr (p = 0.16); Simplified Acute Severity Score (SAPS II): 39 +/- 14 versus 41 +/- 11 (p = 0.

Duration of colonization by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus after hospital discharge and risk factors for prolonged carriage.

To investigate persistent carriage of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), we conducted a prospective 10-month study of MRSA carriage in previous carriers who were readmitted to our hospital. Four screening specimens, 2 from the skin and 2 from the nares, were obtained within 3 days after admission, in addition to diagnostic specimens requested by physicians. Of the 78 patients included in our study, 31 (40%) were persistent carriers of MRSA, with an estimated median time of 8.