Lack of penetration of amikacin into saliva of tuberculosis patients

In the 2016 update of the World Health Organization treatment guideline for drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB), a shorter multidrug-resistant TB regimen was proposed because of its higher treatment outcomes [1]. However, therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) is an excellent method to improve clinical outcomes as well and its practice is on the rise [2]. A well-known side-effect of group B injectable anti-TB drugs (e.g. amikacin) is ototoxicity [3]. TDM could also be a solution to minimise side-effects by lowering the drug exposure [4]. In the study by van Altena et al. [5], TDM was practised using the ratio of peak concentration (Cmax) to minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) and this resulted in a reduction in patients with hearing loss. Saliva is considered as an alternative matrix for TDM because it is easy, noninvasive and more patient friendly to sample [6]. Studies found a limited penetration of gentamycin and tobramycin into saliva [7], while detectable levels of amikacin in saliva of neonates were reported [8]. Given the low penetration of aminoglycosides into saliva and interest in Cmax for TDM of amikacin, our objective was to study whether the salivary Cmax of amikacin is measurable and useful in salivary TDM.Salivary CmaxTDM of amikacin was not feasible in TB treatment due to the very low penetration into saliva http://ow.ly/d6v230h0bW

A highly virulent variant of HIV-1 circulating in the Netherlands

We discovered a highly virulent variant of subtype-B HIV-1 in the Netherlands. One hundred nine individuals with this variant had a 0.54 to 0.74 log10 increase (i.e., a ~3.5-fold to 5.5-fold increase) in viral load compared with, and exhibited CD4 cell decline twice as fast as, 6604 individuals with other subtype-B strains. Without treatment, advanced HIV-CD4 cell counts below 350 cells per cubic millimeter, with long-term clinical consequences-is expected to be reached, on average, 9 months after diagnosis for individuals in their thirties with this variant. Age, sex, suspected mode of transmission, and place of birth for the aforementioned 109 individuals were typical for HIV-positive people in the Netherlands, which suggests that the increased virulence is attributable to the viral strain. Genetic sequence analysis suggests that this variant arose in the 1990s from de novo mutation, not recombination, with increased transmissibility and an unfamiliar molecular mechanism of virulence