FREQUENCY OF ISOLATION AND ANTIMICROBIAL RESISTANCE OF GRAM NEGATIVE AND GRAM POSITIVE BACTERIA FROM PATIENTS IN INTENSIVE CARE UNITS OF 25 EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY HOSPITALS PARTECIPATING IN THE EUROPEAN ARM OF THE SENTRY ANTIMICROBIAL SURVEILLANCE PROGRAM 1997-1998.

Raponi G. partecipante SENTR

Correlation between paraproteinaemia and viral reactivation after allo-SCT

Medd et al.,1 retrospectively studied the occurrence of paraproteinaemia after allo-SCT in a cohort of 91 patients. They detected a paraproteinaemia incidence of 32%, multiple in the majority of cases, with a predominance of an IgG isotype and with equal kappa/lambda restriction. In this report, the most important risk factor for the development of post-transplant paraproteinaemia was CMV reactivation, which was more frequent when alemtuzumab was included in conditioning regimen. The authors also described a poorer OS in patients with paraproteinaemia, with relapse being the commonest cause of death in this group of patients. None of the patients with paraproteinaemia subsequently developed myeloma or a lymphoproliferative disorder and only one patient developed cryoglobulinemia

High genetic diversity among community-associated Staphylococcus aureus in Europe: results from a multicenter study.

Background: Several studies have addressed the epidemiology of community-associated Staphylococcus aureus (CA-SA) in Europe; nonetheless, a comprehensive perspective remains unclear. In this study, we aimed to describe the population structure of CA-SA and to shed light on the origin of methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) in this continent. Methods and Findings: A total of 568 colonization and infection isolates, comprising both MRSA and methicillin-susceptible S. aureus (MSSA), were recovered in 16 European countries, from community and community-onset infections. The genetic background of isolates was characterized by molecular typing techniques (spa typing, pulsed-field gel electrophoresis and multilocus sequence typing) and the presence of PVL and ACME was tested by PCR. MRSA were further characterized by SCCmec typing. We found that 59% of all isolates were associated with community-associated clones. Most MRSA were related with USA300 (ST8-IVa and variants) (40%), followed by the European clone (ST80-IVc and derivatives) (28%) and the Taiwan clone (ST59-IVa and related clonal types) (15%). A total of 83% of MRSA carried Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL) and 14% carried the arginine catabolic mobile element (ACME). Surprisingly, we found a high genetic diversity among MRSA clonal types (ST-SCCmec), Simpson's index of diversity = 0.852 (0.788-0.916). Specifically, about half of the isolates carried novel associations between genetic background and SCCmec. Analysis by BURP showed that some CA-MSSA and CA-MRSA isolates were highly related, suggesting a probable local acquisition/loss of SCCmec. Conclusions: Our results imply that CA-MRSA origin, epidemiology and population structure in Europe is very dissimilar from that of USA. © 2012 Rolo et al