Pathogens

Both influenza and SARS-CoV-2 are seasonal respiratory illnesses with similar symptoms, however distinguishing one from the other can have benefits for the patient and have different implications in various settings. In this study we have evaluated the clinical performance of the Roche distributed SD Biosensor SARS-CoV-2 & Flu A/B Rapid Antigen Test during the 2022/2023 winter season, in a non-hospitalized, mild symptomatic population, comparing results with reverse transcription quantitative p...

Symbiosis of bacteria and human papillomavirus (HPV) in the cervicovaginal environment influences cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) progression or regression. In this case series, we enrolled all 10 patients who had resolved CIN after a cervical local treatment using trichloroacetic acid (TCA). Prominent changes in the cervicovaginal microbiota, such as an enrichment of the genus Bifidobacterium and genus Lactobacillus, were observed in seven of 10 patients. A decrease in cervicovaginal b...

BCR-ABL1 is a chimeric oncogene underlying chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and serves as a key marker for monitoring minimal residual disease. Quantitative RT-qPCR analysis of BCR-ABL1 transcripts enables assessment of molecular response depth and timely detection of treatment failure or resistance. In international practice, the introduction of the International Scale (IS), along with method standardization, has significantly improved the comparability of results between laboratories. Participat...

1.The outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 in early 2020 found health authorities worldwide unprepared to control the pandemic. The adoption of accurate, rapid and inexpensive methods to identify infected subjects in the general population is of paramount relevance for the control of the disease. We evaluated one of the available serological tests, the Prima Lab Covid-19 IgG/IgM Rapid Tests, on 739 volunteers. We first assessed the tests reproducibility by administering it twice on the same day on 104 sub...

This research letter describes the results of a clinical trial of a novel vaginal synbiotic comprising three L. crispatus strains and a supportive nutrient complex. Results indicated that administration of the synbiotic led to an optimal vaginal microbiome dominated by L. crispatus (CST I) and additionally reduced the abundance of microbes associated with vaginal dysbiosis and the abundance of Candida, the most common source of vaginal yeast infections.

Clinical case of a patient with a Pseudomonas aeruginosa multidrug-resistant prosthetic vascular graft infection which was treated with a cocktail of phages (PT07, 14/01 and PNM) in combination with ceftazidime-avibactam (CAZ/AVI). After the application of the phage treatment and in absence of antimicrobial therapy, a new P. aeruginosa bloodstream infection (BSI) with a septic residual limb metastasis occurred, now involving a wild-type strain being susceptible to {beta}-lactams and quinolones. ...

Here, we describe the first placebo-controlled trial of vaginal microbiota transplantation (VMT) in women with asymptomatic dysbiosis without the use of antibiotic pretreatment. Importantly, we also describe the implementation of a donor program and banking of donor cervicovaginal secretions (CVS) while retaining sample viability, which is crucial to allow for scale-up and confirmatory quality testing. By metagenome sequencing, we demonstrate that VMT provided a significant increase in combined ...

IntroductionBacterial vaginosis which affects 14-50% of reproductive-aged women in Nigeria is misdiagnosed and under-reported. Treatment option is antibiotics, which leads to recurrent infections. The objectives of this study are three folds, first to determine effects of oral feeding of Lactobacillus pentosus KCA1 on the vaginal and gut microbiota of women diagnosed with BV; to measure the level of two proinflammatory cytokines IL-1 beta, before and after KCA1 consumption and to determine the r...

AimsTo investigate the prognostic value of admission blood glucose (BG) in predicting COVID-19 outcomes, including poor composite outcomes (mortality/severity), mortality, and severity. Materials and methodsEligible studies evaluating the prognostic value of fasting BG (FBG) and random BG (RBG) levels in predicting COVID-19 outcomes were included and assessed for risk of bias with the Quality in Prognosis Studies tool. Random-effects high-vs-low meta-analysis followed by dose-response analysis ...

BackgroundCOVID-19 pandemic caused by infection with the betacoronavirus SARS-CoV-2 is the greatest public health defiant on a global scale in the last 100 years. Governments and health Institutes face challenges during the pandemic, related to the diagnosis, mitigation, treatment, and timely detection after the epidemic peak for the prevention of new infections and the evaluation of the real impact of the COVID-19 disease in different geographic areas. To develop a valuable tool to study the se...

BackgroundSepsis and septic shock are common causes of ICU admission with devastating outcomes. Adjunctive therapies are urgently needed, and the use of high dose of vitamin B1 and C have recently gained interest. However, on the basis of a perceived possible synergic effect, most trials have never tested the combination of thiamine and ascorbic acid, with a separate assessment of the effect of each individual component. In this context, while the association of thiamine and ascorbic acid was no...

Although bacterial vaginosis (BV) affects 30% of women worldwide and is associated with adverse health outcomes, current standard-of-care antibiotics fail in over half of cases and treatments have not improved in over 40 years. Probiotics have been proposed as alternative treatments, but fail to restore an optimal lactobacilli-dominated microbiome in the vast majority of patients. Here, we present findings from a pilot clinical trial demonstrating the successful engraftment of vaginal microbiota...

BackgroundHashimotos thyroiditis (HT) involves the autoimmune destruction of thyrocytes with the presence of anti-thyroid peroxidase (TPO) and/or anti-thyroglobulin (TG) antibodies. In autoimmune diseases, an immunomodulatory role of Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccination has been reported with decreased autoantibody production and induction of regulatory T cells. We hypothesize that a decline in the efficacy of BCG might be associated with the appearance of HT during adulthood. MethodsAdul...

ObjectivesWe developed and tested multiple computer-vision image classifiers, for their ability to identify a large set of common and rare pathogenic molds. Aim of the study was to create a comprehensive global benchmark towards the novel, emerging field of computer vision driven diagnostics of pathogenic microbes. If successfully implemented, a high-resource clinical setting could greatly benefit from this adjunct technique to supplement molecular sequencing and mass spectrometry driven methodo...

This report describes the ocular manifestations in a cohort of patients with Clade I mpox evaluated in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) from 2007 to 2011, as well as the clinical course of a pediatric patient with mpox associated with ocular disease. Among 216 patients, ocular manifestations were observed in 8.3% of the patients, including conjunctivitis, eyelid lesions, eyelid swelling, eye pain, orbital swelling, keratitis, and corneal staphyloma. These findings highlight the broad s...

Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is a common infection of the lower genital tract with a vaginal microbiome dysbiosis caused by decreasing of lactobacilli. Previous studies suggested that supplementation with live Lactobacillus may benefit the recovery of BV, while the outcomes vary in people from different regions. Herein, we aim to evaluate the effectiveness of oral Chinese-origin Lactobacillus with adjuvant metronidazole (MET) on treating Chinese BV patients. In total, 67 Chinese women with BV were e...

BackgroundThe SARS-CoV-2 virus is responsible for the infectious respiratory disease called COVID-19 (COronaVIrus Disease). In response to the growing COVID-19 pandemic, Rapid Diagnostic Tests (RDTs) have been developed to detect specific antibodies, IgG and IgM, to SARS-CoV-2 virus in human whole blood. We conducted a real-life study to evaluate the performance of two RDTs, COVID-PRESTO(R) and COVID-DUO(R), compared to the gold standard, RT-PCR. MethodsRT-PCR testing of SARS-Cov-2 was performe...

The detection of bacteria in cardiac tissue, vegetations, or explanted prosthetic valves using nucleic acid amplification tests, such as 16S rDNA amplicon sequencing (16S rDNA PCR), has been incorporated as pathologic criterion for definite infective endocarditis into the 2023 Duke-International Society for Cardiovascular Infectious Diseases Criteria for Infective Endocarditis. To verify results from previous studies suggesting increased detection rates and to investigate the added diagnostic va...

Rapid diagnosis of COVID-19 is essential for instituting measures to prevent viral spread. SARS-CoV-2 antigen rapid diagnostic test (Ag-RDT) based on lateral flow immunochromatography assay (LFIA) principle can visually indicate the presence of SARS-CoV-2 antigens as a band. Ag-RDT is clinically promising as a point-of-care testing because it can give results in a short time without the need for special equipment. Although various antigen capture LFIAs are now available for rapid diagnosis for S...

Hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) recipients are at increased risk for a wide spectrum of infections, including opportunistic infections with atypical presentations. Diagnosis can be challenging and often requires extensive testing and invasive procedures. Sequencing of plasma microbial cell-free DNA (mcfDNA) allows non-invasive untargeted detections of human pathogens, making this modality appealing for this patient population. The purpose of this study was to perform a meta-analysis t...