Antibiotic use in departments of internal medicine of Lazio

Antimicrobial therapy is inappropriate in 9 to 64% of the patients hospitalized. We evaluated the antibiotic use in Internal Medicine wards of an Italian region (Lazio) by a prospective multicenter, observational study. One thousand and nine patients were evaluated. Patients under antimicrobial treatment (PUAT) were 588 (58.2%), patients without treatment (PWT) 421 (41.8%). Infections were classified as community acquired (47.8%), hospital acquired (10.3%) or healthcare-associated (11.4%); the remaining 30.5% of infections did not receive any epidemiological classification. Samples for microbiological examination were collected in 41.6% of PUAT. The antibiotic choice was empiric in 94.8% of the cases and protected penicillins were selected in 48% of the cases. The mean duration of treatment was 9.5±6 standard deviation (SD) days. Only 6% of the patients switched from intravenous to oral therapy. Age, length of hospital stay and mortality were higher for PUAT than for PWT (mean age: 75.9±15 SD vs 74.2±15 SD years, P<0.02; length of hospital stay: 13.7±10.4 SD vs 10±8.4 SD days, P<0.01; mortality: 15.9% vs 3.1%). Antibiotic stewardship needs to be implemented all over the hospitals of Lazio region

Method Families Concept: Application to Decision-Making Methods

International audienceThe role of variability in Software engineering grows increasingly as it allows developing solutions that can be easily adapted to a specific context and reusing existing knowledge. In order to deal with variability in the method engineering (ME) domain, we suggest applying the notion of method families. Method components are organized as a method family, which is configured in the given situation into a method line. In this paper, we motivate the concept of method families by comparing the existing approaches of ME. We detail then the concept of method families and illustrate it with a family of decision-making (DM) methods that we call MADISE

Luciferase expression allows bioluminescence imaging but imposes limitations on the orthotopic mouse (4T1) model of breast cancer

Funding Information: Experiments on the 4T1 and 4Tluc2D6 mouse models of breast cancer were supported by the Russian Scientific Foundation, grant 14-14-00882. MRI measurements were carried out on ClinScan 7T located at Center for Collective Usage (CKP) “Medical nanobiotechologies”, located in Russian National Research Medical University. Experiments on the optimization of protocols for DNA immunization were supported by the Russian Scientific Foundation grant 15-15-30039. Optimization of tumor challenge after DNA immunization was supported by the Russian Fund for Basic Research grant 17-04-00583. Participants were trained in the immunization and tumor challenge experiments in the frame of the European Union Twinning project VACTRAIN, grant agreement #692293, and Swedish Institute PI project 19806/2016. Maria Isaguliants and Stefan Petkov were supported by VACTRAIN, and Maria Isaguliants, also by BALTINFECT, grant agreement #316275. Athina Kilpeläinen was supported by the individual study grant of the Swedish Institute #19061/2014. Patrik Hort is gratefully acknowledged for the language editing. Natalia Belikova is gratefully acknowledged for help with the quantification of protein expression based on the exponential calibration curves. Publisher Copyright: © 2017 Nature Publishing Group. All rights reserved.Implantation of reporter-labeled tumor cells in an immunocompetent host involves a risk of their immune elimination. We have studied this effect in a mouse model of breast cancer after the orthotopic implantation of mammary gland adenocarcinoma 4T1 cells genetically labelled with luciferase (Luc). Mice were implanted with 4T1 cells and two derivative Luc-expressing clones 4T1luc2 and 4T1luc2D6 exhibiting equal in vitro growth rates. In vivo, the daughter 4T1luc2 clone exhibited nearly the same, and 4T1luc2D6, a lower growth rate than the parental cells. The metastatic potential of 4T1 variants was assessed by magnetic resonance, bioluminescent imaging, micro-computed tomography, and densitometry which detected 100-μm metastases in multiple organs and bones at the early stage of their development. After 3-4 weeks, 4T1 generated 11.4 ? 2.1, 4T1luc2D6, 4.5 ? 0.6; and 4T1luc2, 〈1 metastases per mouse, locations restricted to lungs and regional lymph nodes. Mice bearing Luc-expressing tumors developed IFN-? Response to the dominant CTL epitope of Luc. Induced by intradermal DNA-immunization, such response protected mice from the establishment of 4T1luc2-tumors. Our data show that natural or induced cellular response against the reporter restricts growth and metastatic activity of the reporter-labelled tumor cells. Such cells represent a powerful instrument for improving immunization technique for cancer vaccine applications.publishersversionPeer reviewe