Colonization by Clostridium difficile of neonates in a hospital, and infants and children in three day-care facilities of Kanazawa, Japan

The intestinal-carriage rates of i>Clostridium difficile in neonates hospitalized in the University Hospital’s Center for Perinatal and Reproductive Health and in infants and children enrolled in two day-nurseries and a kindergarten were examined. Swab samples from the floors of these facilities were also analyzed to determine the extent of environmental contamination by this organism. C. difficile was found in the stool of only one of 40 neonates during the normal 1-week stay in the hospital after delivery. The isolate from the neonate was identical to that of her mother, as determined by PCR ribotyping, pulsed-field gel electrophoresis analysis, and toxin gene type, suggesting that the C. difficile-positive neonate acquired the organism from her mother rather than from the environment. By contrast, 47 (48.0%) of the 98 infants and children, comprising 50 enrolled in two daynurseries who were ≤3 years old and 48 enrolled in a kindergarten who were 2–5 years old, carried C. difficile. The carriage rate in infants under 2 years of age was much higher (84.4%) than in children 2 years old and older (30.3%). When analyzed according to age group, the carriage rates were 100, 75.0, 45.5, 24.0, 38.5, and 23.5% in infants and children 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 years old, respectively. The observation that several children were colonized with the same type of C. difficile strain in each day-care facility, and that the floors of day-nursery A and kindergarten C were contaminated with C. difficile strains identical to those colonizing the intestines of children enrolled in those facilities suggests that cross-infection of C. difficile among children occurs through C. difficile-carrying children or their contaminated environments. [Int Microbiol 2005; 8(1):43-48

愛知県内少年野球チームの肩関節および肘関節のメディカルチェック

The purposes of this study are to clarify when and which characteristics that have been supposed to be the cause of "baseball shoulders" such as instability, subacromial impingement and SLAP lesions observed in adults develop them. We had medical check of forty juvenile baseball players (av.12.3 years). They belong to the same baseball club in Aichi prefecture. One senior sports doctor measured range of motion and examine tenderness points, sings and laxities of the bilateral shoulder and elbow joints. External rotation of the first position of the dominant side was significantly greater than that of the non-dominant side. External rotation of the third position of the dominant side was significantly greater than that of the non-dominant side and internal rotation of the third position of the dominant side was significantly less than that of the non-dominant side. There ware little pathological signs in shoulder and elbow joints of these juvenile baseball players. One player showed positive anterior load and shift test of the shoulder of dominant side and six showed those of non-dominant side. Seven players showed positive posterior load and shift test of the shoulders of dominant side and fifteen showed those of non-dominant side. Five players showed positive sulcus signs of the shoulders of dominant side and eight showed those of non-dominant side. The nine players who had positive sulcus signs on either dominant or non-dominant side had significantly less internal rotation of the third position than the other players. Whereas the eighteen players who had positive posterior laxity on either dominant or non-dominant side didn\u27t have significantly less internal rotation of the third position than the other players. Positive sulcus sign suggests inferior laxity. This means inferior laxity has different role on developing posterior tightness of the throwing shoulder from posterior laxity