Diagnostic and prognostic impact of brain natriuretic peptide in cardiac and noncardiac diseases.

Objective: Cardiac secretion of brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) increases with the progression of congestive heart failure (CHF). The plasma measurement of BNP emerged recently as a useful, cost-effective biomarker for the diagnosis and prognosis of CHF.

Methods: BNP assay is useful for evaluating patients with acute dyspnea, because a low level can help rule out CHF in primary care settings and reduce the demand for echocardiography.

Outbreaks in distinct regions due to a single Klebsiella pneumoniae clone carrying a bla VIM-1 metallo-{beta}-lactamase gene.

From December 2004 to March 2005, 27 Klebsiella pneumoniae clinical isolates that were positive by the imipenem-EDTA double-disk synergy test and that exhibited a single macro-restriction pattern were recovered in two distinct Greek hospitals. The isolates carried a transferable bla(VIM-1) metallo-beta-lactamase gene in a class 1 integron. Reverse transcriptase PCR showed that the gene was similarly expressed in low- and high-level carbapenem-resistant isolates, indicating the existence of additional resistance mechanisms.

Hospital outbreak of multiple clones of Pseudomonas aeruginosa carrying the unrelated metallo-beta-lactamase gene variants blaVIM-2 and blaVIM-4.

Objectives: The possible contribution of metallo-beta-lactamases in the frequent detection of carbapenem-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates in a tertiary Greek hospital in Central Greece was investigated.

Materials And Methods: All carbapenem-resistant (imipenem- and/or meropenem-resistant) P. aeruginosa isolates recovered from separate patients during a 1 year period in the Clinical Microbiology Laboratory at the University Hospital of Thessaly, Larissa, Greece, were studied for metallo-beta-lactamases.