Antibacterial activity of a sterile antimicrobial polyisoprene surgical glove against transient flora following a 2-hours simulated use

Background: A surgical glove will protect surgeons and patients only if the glove’s integrity remains intact. However, several studies have demonstrated that undetected micro-perforations of surgical gloves are common. Because of the possibility of surgical glove puncture, an antimicrobial surgical glove was developed. The aim of this laboratory based experimental study was to assess the antibacterial efficacy of the interior chlorhexidine-gluconate (CHG)-coat of an antimicrobial synthetic polyisoprene surgical glove by using a standardized microbiological challenge. Methods: Sixteen healthy adult participants donned one antimicrobial surgical glove and one non-antimicrobial surgical glove randomly allocated to their dominant and non-dominant hand following a crossover design. During a 2-h wear time, participants performed standardized finger and hand movements. Thereafter, the interior surface of excised fingers of the removed gloves was challenged with 8.00 log10 cfu/mL S. aureus (ATCC 6538) or K. pneumoniae (ATCC 4352), respectively. The main outcome measure was the viable mean log10 cfu counts of the two glove groups after 5 min contact with the interior glove’s surface. Results: When comparing an antimicrobial glove against an untreated reference glove after 2-h simulated use wear-time, a mean reduction factor of 6.24 log10 (S. aureus) and 6.22 log10 (K. pneumoniae) was achieved after 5 min contact. Conclusion: These results demonstrate that wearing antibacterial gloves on hands does not negatively impact their antibacterial activity after 2-h of wear. This may have a potential benefit for patient safety in case of glove puncture during surgical procedures

Concept of the Munich/Augsburg Consortium Precision in Mental Health for the German Center of Mental Health

The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) issued a call for a new nationwide research network on mental disorders, the German Center of Mental Health (DZPG). The Munich/Augsburg consortium was selected to participate as one of six partner sites with its concept “Precision in Mental Health (PriMe): Understanding, predicting, and preventing chronicity.” PriMe bundles interdisciplinary research from the Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU), Technical University of Munich (TUM), University of Augsburg (UniA), Helmholtz Center Munich (HMGU), and Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry (MPIP) and has a focus on schizophrenia (SZ), bipolar disorder (BPD), and major depressive disorder (MDD). PriMe takes a longitudinal perspective on these three disorders from the at-risk stage to the first-episode, relapsing, and chronic stages. These disorders pose a major health burden because in up to 50% of patients they cause untreatable residual symptoms, which lead to early social and vocational disability, comorbidities, and excess mortality. PriMe aims at reducing mortality on different levels, e.g., reducing death by psychiatric and somatic comorbidities, and will approach this goal by addressing interdisciplinary and cross-sector approaches across the lifespan. PriMe aims to add a precision medicine framework to the DZPG that will propel deeper understanding, more accurate prediction, and personalized prevention to prevent disease chronicity and mortality across mental illnesses. This framework is structured along the translational chain and will be used by PriMe to innovate the preventive and therapeutic management of SZ, BPD, and MDD from rural to urban areas and from patients in early disease stages to patients with long-term disease courses. Research will build on platforms that include one on model systems, one on the identification and validation of predictive markers, one on the development of novel multimodal treatments, one on the regulation and strengthening of the uptake and dissemination of personalized treatments, and finally one on testing of the clinical effectiveness, utility, and scalability of such personalized treatments. In accordance with the translational chain, PriMe’s expertise includes the ability to integrate understanding of bio-behavioral processes based on innovative models, to translate this knowledge into clinical practice and to promote user participation in mental health research and care

Potential value of a rapid syndromic multiplex PCR for the diagnosis of native and prosthetic joint infections: a real-world evidence study

Introduction: The BIOFIRE Joint Infection (JI) Panel is a diagnostic tool that uses multiplex-PCR testing to detect microorganisms in synovial fluid specimens from patients suspected of having septic arthritis (SA) on native joints or prosthetic joint infections (PJIs). Methods: A study was conducted across 34 clinical sites in 19 European and Middle Eastern countries from March 2021 to June 2022 to assess the effectiveness of the BIOFIRE JI Panel. Results: A total of 1527 samples were collected from patients suspected of SA or PJI, with an overall agreement of 88.4 % and 85 % respectively between the JI Panel and synovial fluid cultures (SFCs). The JI Panel detected more positive samples and microorganisms than SFC, with a notable difference on Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus species, Enterococcus faecalis, Kingella kingae, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, and anaerobic bacteria. The study found that the BIOFIRE JI Panel has a high utility in the real-world clinical setting for suspected SA and PJI, providing diagnostic results in approximately 1 h. The user experience was positive, implying a potential benefit of rapidity of results' turnover in optimising patient management strategies. Conclusion: The study suggests that the BIOFIRE JI Panel could potentially optimise patient management and antimicrobial therapy, thus highlighting its importance in the clinical setting