SERRS as a more sensitive technique for the detection of labelled oligonucleotides compared to fluorescence

This communication contains data from a comparison between the detection limits obtained using surface enhanced resonance Raman scattering (SERRS) and fluorescence detection of dye labelled oligonucleotides. The results show that the detection limits for SERRS are generally at least three orders of magnitude lower than those obtained for fluorescence

Adherence to antithrombotic therapy guidelines improves mortality among elderly patients with atrial fibrillation: insights from the REPOSI study

Background: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is associated with a substantial risk of thromboembolism and mortality, significantly reduced by oral anticoagulation. Adherence to guidelines may lower the risks for both all cause and cardiovascular (CV) deaths. Methods: Our objective was to evaluate if antithrombotic prophylaxis according to the 2012 European Society of Cardiology (ESC) guidelines is associated to a lower rate of adverse outcomes. Data were obtained from REPOSI; a prospective observational study enrolling inpatients aged 6565 years. Patients enrolled in 2012 and 2014 discharged with an AF diagnosis were analysed. Results: Among 2535 patients, 558 (22.0 %) were discharged with a diagnosis of AF. Based on ESC guidelines, 40.9 % of patients were on guideline-adherent thromboprophylaxis, 6.8 % were overtreated, and 52.3 % were undertreated. Logistic analysis showed that increasing age (p = 0.01), heart failure (p = 0.04), coronary artery disease (p = 0.013), peripheral arterial disease (p = 0.03) and concomitant cancer (p = 0.003) were associated with non-adherence to guidelines. Specifically, undertreatment was significantly associated with increasing age (p = 0.001) and cancer (p < 0.001), and inversely associated with HF (p = 0.023). AF patients who were guideline adherent had a lower rate of both all-cause death (p = 0.007) and CV death (p = 0.024) compared to those non-adherent. Kaplan\u2013Meier analysis showed that guideline-adherent patients had a lower cumulative risk for both all-cause (p = 0.002) and CV deaths (p = 0.011). On Cox regression analysis, guideline adherence was independently associated with a lower risk of all-cause and CV deaths (p = 0.019 and p = 0.006). Conclusions: Non-adherence to guidelines is highly prevalent among elderly AF patients, despite guideline-adherent treatment being independently associated with lower risk of all-cause and CV deaths. Efforts to improve guideline adherence would lead to better outcomes for elderly AF patients

Polypharmacy in older people: lessons from 10\ua0years of experience with the REPOSI\ua0register

As a consequence of population aging, we have witnessed in internal medicine hospital wards a progressive shift from a population of in-patients relatively young and mainly affected by a single ailment to one of ever older and more and more complex patients with multiple chronic diseases, followed as out-patients by many different specialists with poor integration and\ua0inevitably treated with multiple medications. Polypharmacy (defined as the chronic intake of five or more drugs) is associated with increased risks of drug\u2013drug interactions and related adverse effects, prescription and intake errors, poor compliance, re-hospitalization and mortality. With this background, the Italian Society of Internal Medicine chose to start in 2008 a prospective register called REPOSI (REgistro POliterapie SIMI, Societ\ue0 Italiana di Medicina Interna) in internal medicine and geriatric hospital wards. The country wide register is an ongoing observatory on multimorbidity and polypharmacy in the oldest old, with the goal to improve prescription appropriateness and, thus to avoid potentially inappropriate medications. The main findings of the register, that has accrued so far, 7005 older patients throughout a 10\ua0year period, are summarized herewith, with special emphasis on the main patterns of poor prescription appropriateness and related risks of adverse events

Prevalence and Determinants of the Use of Lipid-Lowering Agents 3 in a Population of Older Hospitalized Patients: the Findings 4 from the REPOSI (REgistro POliterapie Societa` Italiana di 5 Medicina Interna) Study

Background Older patients are prone to multimorbidity and polypharmacy, with an inherent risk of adverse events and drug interactions. To the best of our knowledge, available information on the appropriateness of lipid-lowering treatment is extremely limited. Aim The aim of the present study was to quantify and characterize lipid-lowering drug use in a population of complex in-hospital older patients. Methods We analyzed data from 87 units of internal medicine or geriatric medicine in the REPOSI (Registro Politerapie della SocietA Italiana di Medicina Interna) study, with reference to the 2010 and 2012 patient cohorts. Lipid-lowering drug use was closely correlated with the clinical profiles, including multimorbidity markers and polypharmacy. Results 2171 patients aged > 65 years were enrolled (1057 males, 1114 females, mean age 78.6 years). The patients treated with lipid-lowering drugs amounted to 508 subjects (23.4%), with no gender difference. Atorvastatin (39.3%) and simvastatin (34.0%) were the most widely used statin drugs. Likelihood of treatment was associated with polypharmacy (>= 5 drugs) and with higher Cumulative Illness Rating Scale (CIRS) score. At logistic regression analysis, the presence of coronary heart disease, peripheral vascular disease, and hypertension were significantly correlated with lipid-lowering drug use, whereas age showed an inverse correlation. Diabetes was not associated with drug treatment. Conclusion In this in-hospital cohort, the use of lipid-lowering agents was mainly driven by patients' clinical history, most notably the presence of clinically overt manifestations of atherosclerosis. Increasing age seems to be associated with lower prescription rates. This might be indicative of cautious behavior towards a potentially toxic treatment regimen

Epidemiology of intra-abdominal infection and sepsis in critically ill patients: “AbSeS”, a multinational observational cohort study and ESICM Trials Group Project

Purpose: To describe the epidemiology of intra-abdominal infection in an international cohort of ICU patients according to a new system that classifies cases according to setting of infection acquisition (community-acquired, early onset hospital-acquired, and late-onset hospital-acquired), anatomical disruption (absent or present with localized or diffuse peritonitis), and severity of disease expression (infection, sepsis, and septic shock). Methods: We performed a multicenter (n = 309), observational, epidemiological study including adult ICU patients diagnosed with intra-abdominal infection. Risk factors for mortality were assessed by logistic regression analysis. Results: The cohort included 2621 patients. Setting of infection acquisition was community-acquired in 31.6%, early onset hospital-acquired in 25%, and late-onset hospital-acquired in 43.4% of patients. Overall prevalence of antimicrobial resistance was 26.3% and difficult-to-treat resistant Gram-negative bacteria 4.3%, with great variation according to geographic region. No difference in prevalence of antimicrobial resistance was observed according to setting of infection acquisition. Overall mortality was 29.1%. Independent risk factors for mortality included late-onset hospital-acquired infection, diffuse peritonitis, sepsis, septic shock, older age, malnutrition, liver failure, congestive heart failure, antimicrobial resistance (either methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, vancomycin-resistant enterococci, extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-producing Gram-negative bacteria, or carbapenem-resistant Gram-negative bacteria) and source control failure evidenced by either the need for surgical revision or persistent inflammation. Conclusion: This multinational, heterogeneous cohort of ICU patients with intra-abdominal infection revealed that setting of infection acquisition, anatomical disruption, and severity of disease expression are disease-specific phenotypic characteristics associated with outcome, irrespective of the type of infection. Antimicrobial resistance is equally common in community-acquired as in hospital-acquired infection. © 2019, The Author(s)