Clinical usefulness of HCV core antigen assay for the management of patients with chronic hepatitis C.

Aim: The study aimed to evaluate the clinical utility of the chemiluminescent HCV core Ag test compared to viral load assessment in the management of patients with chronic hepatitis C.

Methods: A retrospective study was performed at a tertiary-care infectious diseases hospital on samples collected from anti-HCV positive patients. Seventy-six samples were tested with the Architect HCV core Antigen kit and Cobas AmpliPrep/Cobas Taqman HCV kit.

Pneumonias - a dynamic relationship between the human organism and the etiologic agent.

Pneumonias are usually acute infectious processes of the pulmonary parenchyma, being the result of the overcome of the natural defence mechanisms of the human organism, which lead to the penetration, persistence and multiplication of a biologic agent (which has become a pathogen agent) within the lungs. This is a phenomena which generates local manifestations (inflammation) and systemic manifestations, their variable dimension (which is conditioned by the state of the host and/or the virulence of the pathogen agent) explaining the clinical, paraclinical and biological dimensions of the phenomena. The current material deals on one hand with the phenomena which takes part in the formation of the heterogeneous spectrum of the pneumonias and, on the other hand, we will demonstrate the manner in which the expansion and the severity of the infectious phenomena depend on the virulence of the etiologic agent, on the manner in which the defence mechanisms have been overcome, and also on the biological state of the invaded organism.

Recent HIV-1 Outbreak Among Intravenous Drug Users in Romania: Evidence for Cocirculation of CRF14_BG and Subtype F1 Strains.

Since 2011, Romania has faced an HIV outbreak among injecting drug users (IDUs). Our aim was to identify and describe clinical and epidemiological patterns of this outbreak. A cross-sectional study enrolled 138 IDUs diagnosed with HIV infection between 2011 and 2013 with 58 sexually infected individuals included as the control group.

Epidemiology of hepatitis D in patients infected with hepatitis B virus in bucharest: a cross-sectional study.

Epidemiological analyses indicate a decreasing level of hepatitis D (HDV) infections in most developed countries during the last 15 years. Romania, however, is one of the European countries that still has high morbidity from HDV; this study was performed in order to estimate the HDV prevalence in the Bucharest area. Three thousand four hundred sixty-one hepatitis B (HBV) infected patients were invited to participate and 1,094 were recruited.

Molecular typing of the recently expanding subtype B HIV-1 epidemic in Romania: evidence for local spread among MSMs in Bucharest area.

HIV-1 subtype B is predominant in Europe except in some countries from Eastern Europe which are characterized by a high prevalence of non-B subtypes and circulating recombinant forms (CRFs). Romania is a particular case: the HIV-1 epidemic started with subtype F1 which is still the most prevalent. Previous studies have shown an increasing prevalence of subtype B which is the second most frequent one among the newly diagnosed individuals, followed by subtype C and several CRFs as well as unique recombinant forms (URFs).

Isolated tuberculous tenosynovitis of the forearm in an immunocompetent patient.

Primary tuberculous tenosynovitis is a rare manifestation of extraspinal musculoskeletal tuberculosis. The diagnosis may be easily delayed because of its nonspecific clinical signs. We report a case of culture-proven tuberculous tenosynovitis of the extensor carpi ulnaris tendon and common extensor tendon in a 68-year-old female without concomitant pulmonary tuberculosis, nor documented immunodeficiency.

Detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis resistance mutations to rifampin and isoniazid by real-time PCR.

Objective: The objective of our study was to evaluate the use of a real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based technique for the prediction of phenotypic resistance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Materials And Methods: We tested 67 M tuberculosis strains (26 drug resistant and 41 drug susceptible) using a method recommended for the LightCycler platform. The susceptibility testing was performed by the absolute concentration method.

Diversity of HIV-1 subtype C strains isolated in Romania.

Two unique aspects particularities of the HIV-1 epidemics in Romania are the high prevalence of subtype F1 strains and the large pediatric population infected in the late 1980s and early 1990s. During recent years, more infections with other subtypes have been seen in newly diagnosed patients. After subtype B, subtype C was the most frequent one.

Nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor resistance mutations in subtype F1 strains isolated from heavily treated adolescents in Romania.

Objective: To examine the nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI) resistance mutations in the reverse transcriptase gene of HIV-1 F1 subtype strains isolated from heavily treated adolescents.

Methods: Three hundred and fifty reverse transcriptase (RT) genotypes with at least three NRTI resistance mutations were included in this study; the corresponding strains were isolated from adolescents with a complex history of antiretroviral treatment. Subtyping was done using the publicly available algorithm REGA HIV-1&2.