A wound protector shields incision sites from bacterial invasion.

Background: Superficial surgical site infection (SSI) can be caused by bacterial invasion during surgery. We investigated whether bacteria are found at the wound margin during surgery and whether a wound protector (WP; Alexis® Wound Retractor; Applied Medical, Rancho Santa Margarita, CA) contributes to preventing invasion of the incision margin.

Methods: We studied 272 patients who underwent gastrointestinal surgery (115 gastric, 157 colorectal, including emergency operations) between October 2005 and July 2007.

[A study on inoculum density and reproducibility of drug susceptibility testing by BACTEC MGIT 960].

Objective: The BACTEC MGIT 960 drug susceptibility system (MGIT AST) has been recently introduced in Japan. The issue of discordant MGIT results compared with the conventionally used Ogawa method has been raised. It has been speculated that discordant results might be due to MGIT inoculum density since there is no standardization step other than dilution of growth for tubes beyond 2 days after MGIT turns out to be positive.

[Present trends of drug-resistant tuberculosis and how to manage it by mycobacterial laboratories].

Global, domestic, and local trends of drug-resistant tuberculosis and how to manage increase in the resistance by mycobacterial laboratories were discussed based on literatures and our own data. At first, how to make drug-resistant tuberculosis was explained. Genetic drug-resistant bacteria were emerged spontaneously by mutation of the genome and were selected by inadequate treatment(mono-therapy or functional mono-therapy): acquired drug resistance(single, and then multi-drug resistance).