Objectives: Increasing incidence and severity of Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) in the last decades has been attributed to the emergence of hypervirulent C. difficile strain PCR-ribotype 027 (RT027). Commercial multiplex real-time PCR tests allow the presumptive identification of RT027 by detecting a single-base deletion at nt117 in the tcdC gene (tcdCΔ117). The clinical usefulness of the detection of tcdCΔ117 is unclear. Therefore, we evaluated test performance and clinical association of the detection of tcdCΔ117 in patients with CDI in a prospective observational study conducted in a tertiary care hospital in Germany.
Methods: From June to October 2015, stool from all patients with suspected CDI was tested for C. difficile according to ESCMID guidelines. C. difficile was cultured from positive samples and ribotyping was performed. Clinical data were collected prospectively from all C. difficile positive patients.
Results: From 1121 tested stool samples 107 patients with CDI were included in the study. TcdCΔ117 was detected in 18 (16.8%) of these patients. Multivariable logistic regression analysis revealed an independent association of detection of tcdCΔ117 with a further episode of CDI (OR 14.6; 95% CI 3.6-58.3; p < 0.001) and death within 30 days of the positive test (OR 5.1; 95% CI 1.0-25.7; p = 0.046). As follow up data are limited, it remains unclear, whether the further episode of CDI was due to tcdCΔ117 (recurrence) or another type.
Conclusion: In our setting, PCR-based detection of tcdCΔ117 identified patients at risk for recurrent CDI and increased mortality and thus may guide therapeutic choices in CDI patients at the time of diagnosis.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anaerobe.2019.03.010 | DOI Listing |
Lab Anim
January 2025
Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka.
The immunogenicity of rabies vaccines is commonly measured by serological testing, which includes measuring rabies virus-neutralising antibody titre levels in the serum. Apart from humoral immunity, cellular immunity measurements are also helpful in assessing the immunogenicity and efficacy of rabies vaccinations. Recently, there has been an increased emphasis on cellular immunity measurements against rabies in humans and animals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Clin Exp Neuropsychol
January 2025
Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA.
Introduction: Diagnostic evaluations for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are becoming increasingly complicated by the number of adults who fabricate or exaggerate symptoms. Novel methods are needed to improve the assessment process required to detect these noncredible symptoms. The present study investigated whether unsupervised machine learning (ML) could serve as one such method, and detect noncredible symptom reporting in adults undergoing ADHD evaluations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFComput Biol Med
January 2025
Emerging Technologies Research Lab (ETRL), College of Computer Science and Information Systems, Najran University, Najran, 61441, Saudi Arabia; Department of Computer Science, College of Computer Science and Information Systems, Najran University, Najran, 61441, Saudi Arabia. Electronic address:
- Brain tumors (BT), both benign and malignant, pose a substantial impact on human health and need precise and early detection for successful treatment. Analysing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) image is a common method for BT diagnosis and segmentation, yet misdiagnoses yield effective medical responses, impacting patient survival rates. Recent technological advancements have popularized deep learning-based medical image analysis, leveraging transfer learning to reuse pre-trained models for various applications.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFComput Biol Med
January 2025
School of Computer Science, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju 28644, Republic of Korea. Electronic address:
The fusion index is a critical metric for quantitatively assessing the transformation of in vitro muscle cells into myotubes in the biological and medical fields. Traditional methods for calculating this index manually involve the labor-intensive counting of numerous muscle cell nuclei in images, which necessitates determining whether each nucleus is located inside or outside the myotubes, leading to significant inter-observer variation. To address these challenges, this study proposes a three-stage process that integrates the strengths of pattern recognition and deep-learning to automatically calculate the fusion index.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBr J Nurs
January 2025
Postgraduate Program in Nursing, Nursing Department, Health Sciences Centre, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianopolis, Brazil.
Highlights: PIVCs often cause pain, irritation, or infection. Regular and careful catheter checks can decrease complications and improve patient outcomes. Implementation of the I-DECIDED® tool led to fewer idle catheters and complications.
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