Clinical Laboratory Biosafety Gaps: Lessons Learned from Past Outbreaks Reveal a Path to a Safer Future.

Patient care and public health require timely, reliable laboratory testing. However, clinical laboratory professionals rarely know whether patient specimens contain infectious agents, making ensuring biosafety while performing testing procedures challenging. The importance of biosafety in clinical laboratories was highlighted during the 2014 Ebola outbreak, where concerns about biosafety resulted in delayed diagnoses and contributed to patient deaths.

Laboratory Response to Ebola - West Africa and United States.

The 2014-2016 Ebola virus disease (Ebola) epidemic in West Africa highlighted the need to maintain organized laboratory systems or networks that can be effectively reorganized to implement new diagnostic strategies and laboratory services in response to large-scale events. Although previous Ebola outbreaks enabled establishment of critical laboratory practice safeguards and diagnostic procedures, this Ebola outbreak in West Africa highlighted the need for planning and preparedness activities that are better adapted to emerging pathogens or to pathogens that have attracted little commercial interest. The crisis underscored the need for better mechanisms to streamline development and evaluation of new diagnostic assays, transfer of material and specimens between countries and organizations, and improved processes for rapidly deploying health workers with specific laboratory expertise.

Trial of Zolpidem, Eszopiclone, and Other GABA Agonists in a Patient with Progressive Supranuclear Palsy.

Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) is a progressive, debilitating neurodegenerative disease of the Parkinson-plus family of syndromes. Unfortunately, there are no pharmacologic treatments for this condition, as most sufferers of the classic variant respond poorly to Parkinson medications such as levodopa. Zolpidem, a gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA) agonist specific to the α-1 receptor subtype, has been reported to show improvements in symptoms of PSP patients, including motor dysfunction, dysarthria, and ocular disturbances.

Guidelines for safe work practices in human and animal medical diagnostic laboratories. Recommendations of a CDC-convened, Biosafety Blue Ribbon Panel.

Prevention of injuries and occupational infections in U.S. laboratories has been a concern for many years.

Student involvement in wellness policies: a study of Pennsylvania local education agencies.

Objective: Explore student-involvement goals in local wellness policies (LWPs) of local education agencies (LEAs) in Pennsylvania (PA) and investigate associations with LEA characteristics.

Design: An observational study that helped examine student-involvement goals.

Setting: Public PA LEAs.

Arterial spin-labeled perfusion combined with segmentation techniques to evaluate cerebral blood flow in white and gray matter of children with sickle cell anemia.

Background: Changes in cerebral perfusion are an important feature of the pathophysiology of sickle cell anemia (SCA); cerebrovascular ischemia occurs frequently and leads to neurocognitive deficits, silent infarcts, and overt stroke. Non-invasive MRI methods to measure cerebral blood flow (CBF) by arterial spin labeling (ASL) afford new opportunities to characterize disease- and therapy-induced changes in cerebral hemodynamics in patients with SCA. Recent studies have documented elevated gray matter (GM) CBF in untreated children with SCA, but no measurements of white matter (WM) CBF have been reported.

Neutrophil CD11b expression as a diagnostic marker for early-onset neonatal infection.

Objectives: To determine whether neutrophil surface expression of CD11b predicts early-onset infection or suspected infection in at-risk infants.

Study Design: CD11b expression on peripheral blood neutrophils was determined by flow cytometry of whole blood samples. Blood (0.

[Predictive experimental animal test of contact allergenicity. Relevance of the methods of the OECD and EEC guidelines. The organization for Economic Co-operation and Development].

In the first part of this article a historical note is given on the development of predictive contact allergenicity tests in guinea pigs starting with the Draize test, including epidermal methods and at least induction procedures using Freund complete adjuvant as a nonspecific enhancer of immunoreactivity. The tests of the OECD and EEC guidelines are listed and classified according to their predictive sensitivity. It is recommended to test reference allergens by different test methods in one's own laboratory to obtain personal experience with the various methods.

Predictive contact allergenicity influence of the animal strain used.

In order to determine the validity of reported alleged differences in the susceptibility of various strains of guinea pigs to the sensitizing action of known allergens, three unrelated strains of guinea pigs, namely Pirbright White, Hartley and Himalayan spotted strain, were selected. In our investigation, 3 haptens differing in their sensitization potential were used. The results showed that the sensitivity of the 3 given guinea pig strains was comparable.

[Comparative clinical trial of a new trihalogenated dermatocorticoid (halometasone) versus betamethasone dipropionate].

In a multicenter controlled study carried out in Austria and Switzerland by 8 dermatologists in 208 patients with acute eczematous dermatoses, 0.05% halometasone cream proved to have significantly superior clinical efficacy than 0.05% betamethasone dipropionate cream (P much less than 0.

Evaluation of halometasone ointment in the treatment of paediatric patients with chronic eczematous dermatoses.

Fifty children suffering from non-infected chronic eczematous dermatoses were treated with an ointment containing 0.05% halometasone, a new high potency trihalogenated synthetic corticosteroid. Halometasone ointment does not contain parabens or perfumes.

Keratin-like proteins in normal and neoplastic cells of human and rat mammary gland as revealed by immunofluorescence microscopy.

Normal and neoplastic human breast tissue as well as lactating and nonlactating rat mammary glands and 7,12-dimethylbenz(alpha)-anthracene-induced mammary adenocarcinomas of rat, were examined by indirect immunofluorescence microscopy using guinea pig antibodies to human and bovine epidermal prekeratin and to cytokeratin polypeptide D from mouse hepatocytes. In normal mammary glands of both species, lactating rats included, the antibodies raised against human and bovine epidermal prekeratins strongly stained ductal and myoepithelial cells, whereas antibodies to hepatic cytokeratin D revealed, in addition, fibrillar staining in cells of the alveolus-like terminal lobular units and in milk secreting cells of the rat. The presence of some finely dispersed intermediate-sized filaments of the cytokeratin type in lactating alveolar cells of rat mammary gland was also demonstrated by electron microscopy.

Predictive animal testing for photocontact allergenicity.

The purpose of this investigation was to establish a standardized animal model to predict the photoallergenic potential of new chemical compounds. In a first series of experiments the main factors influencing the induction of photoallergenicity were evaluated (induction concentration, pH of the test solution, pretreatment of the irradiation site with sodium lauryl sulphate, additional use of adjuvant injections and routes of administration). Osram Ultravitalux lamps were utilized for these studies.

Evaluation of the photocontact allergenic potential of 6-methylcoumarin in the guinea pig.

6-Methylcoumarin was tested in a new animal model developed for the predictive evaluation of photocontact allergenic potential. Negative results were obtained and these are discussed with respect to inherent limitations of the animal model.

The optimization test in the guinea pig in relation to other predictive sensitization methods.

The allergenicity of various compounds was tested by means of the optimization procedure in the guinea-pig. Results with antibiotics, preservatives, fragrance raw materials and miscellaneous contactants are reported. Their relevance is critically discussed in relation to other animal sensitization methods (Draize, Bühler, open epicutaneous and maximization tests).

[Photocontact allergy. On the epidemiology and possible prediction from animal experiments (author's transl)].

The incidence of photocontact allergic reactions in man is compared with that of pure contact allergic reactions by reviewing the literature of the last 15 years. A list of the more important photoallergenic compounds with the numbers of published clinical cases has been compiled. The common animal test procedures are reviewed and critically discussed.

[Effect of dermatocorticoids on the activity of hepatic tryptophane pyrrolase in the guinea pig (author's transl)].

The enzyme activity of tryptophane pyrrolase in guinea pig liver can be measurably increased--as in other mammalian species--by systemic administration of corticoids, but this effect is short-lived and achieved only with high s.c. doses of, e.

Erythrocyte adherence to the marginal zone of mouse spleen follicle mediated by receptor(s) for neuraminic acid.

Erythrocytes of different species (chicken, sheep, man, mouse, rat, guinea pig) except rabbit erythrocytes strongly adhere to the marginal zone of mouse spleen follicles in frozen sections. This adherence reaction (AR) is not restricted to red blood cells but is also observed with human lymphocytes. Pretreatment of the tissue sections with trypsin, mercaptoethanol, periodate, chloroform/methanol, acetone, and heating the sections abolishes AR whereas neuraminidase (VCN) treatment of the sections has an amplifying effect.

Antimicrobial spectrum of triclosan, a broad-spectrum antimicrobial agent for topical application. II. Comparison with some other antimicrobial agents.

The antimicrobial activity of 5-chloro-2(2,4-dichlorophenoxy) phenol (triclosan, one of the active ingredients of Logamel, Ciba-Geigy) was compared in vitro with that of other antimicrobials exclusively or occasionally used as topical agents in dermatology: hexachlorophene, clioquinol, chlorquinaldol. gentamicin, neomycin, nystatin, econazole, clotrimazole and salicylic acid. Upon determination of the MICs for 53 strains of aerobic and anaerobic bacteria, yeasts and fungi, triclosan was found to display a high degree of activity against most of the test organisms and to have the broadest spectrum of chemotherapeutically significant antimicrobial activity of the substances tested.

Percutaneous absorption of chlorquinaldol (Sterosan).

The percutaneous absorption of chlorquinaldol from three different preparations for skin treatment (Sterosan-hydrocortison ointment and cream, Sterosan ointment) was evaluated by measuring the cumulative urinary excretion of chlorquinaldol and was compared to that found after an equivalent oral dose. In the blood the concentrations were below the detection limit of the analytical procedure, i.e.

Predictive evaluation in animals of the contact allergenic potential of medically important substances. II. Comparison of different methods of cutaneous sensitization with "weak" allergens.

Results of the optimization method and of other methods used to assess contact allergy in laboratory animals were compared with known epidemiological data on the occurrence of hypersensitivity reactions in man. Tests were performed with preservatives (formalin, ethylenediamine and sorbic acid), drugs (penicillin G, Benzocaine and sulphathiazole) and other contactants belonging to widely different chemical classes (p-phenylenediamine, triclosan, pyrazole derivatives, nickel and chrome salts, eugenol, isoeugenol and mercaptobenzothiazole). The degree of sensitization achieved in guinea pigs by the optimized procedure (intradermal test with adjuvant combination) and the maximization procedure was invariably superior to that produced by the epidermal method using prior irritation of the site of application.