Scientific reports
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Management of Sepsis would greatly benefit from the incorporation of simple and informative new biomarkers in clinical practice. Ideally, a sepsis biomarker should segregate infected from non-infected patients, provide information about prognosis and organ-specific damage, and be accessible to most healthcare services. The immature platelet fraction (IPF) and immature reticulocyte fraction (IRF) are new analytical parameters of the complete blood count, that have been studied as biomarkers of several inflammatory conditions. ⋯ IPF correlated with sepsis severity scores and presented the highest diagnostic accuracy for the presence of sepsis of all studied clinical and laboratory parameters. No significant differences were observed in IRF levels. Our results suggest that IPF levels could be used as a biomarker of sepsis diagnosis and severity.
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Live poultry markets are a source of human infection with avian influenza A (H7N9) virus. On February 21, 2014, a poultry farmer infected with H7N9 virus was identified in Jilin, China, and H7N9 and H9N2 viruses were isolated from the patient's farm. ⋯ The reassortment event that led to the human virus may have occurred between January 2, 2014 (95% CI November 8, 2013-February 12, 2014) and February 12, 2014 (95% CI January 19, 2014-February 18, 2014). Our findings demonstrate that poultry farms could be a source of reassortment between H7N9 virus and H9N2 virus as well as human infection, which emphasizes the importance to public health of active avian influenza surveillance at poultry farms.
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An important interaction between opioid and dopamine systems has been indicated, and using opioids may negatively affect cognitive functioning. Memantine, a medication for Alzheimer's disease, increasingly is being used for several disorders and maybe important for cognitive improvement. Opioid-dependent patients undergoing methadone-maintenance-therapy (MMT) and healthy controls (HCs) were recruited. ⋯ We also found an interaction between the patient groups and time which indicated that the MMT+M group's post-treatment improvement was better than that of the MMT+P group. Memantine, previously reported as neuroprotective may attenuate chronic opioid-dependence-induced cognitive decline. Using such low dose of memantine as adjuvant treatment for improving cognitive performance in opioid dependents; the dose of memantine might be a worthy topic in future studies.
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Understanding the significance of bacterial species that colonize and persist in cystic fibrosis (CF) airways requires a detailed examination of bacterial community structure across a broad range of age and disease stage. We used 16S ribosomal RNA sequencing to characterize the lung microbiota in 269 CF patients spanning a 60 year age range, including 76 pediatric samples from patients of age 4-17, and a broad cross-section of disease status to identify features of bacterial community structure and their relationship to disease stage and age. The CF lung microbiota shows significant inter-individual variability in community structure, composition and diversity. ⋯ Community diversity and lung function are greatest in patients less than 10 years of age and lower in older age groups, plateauing at approximately age 25. Lower community diversity correlates with worse lung function in a multivariate regression model. Infection by Pseudomonas correlates with age-associated trends in community diversity and lung function.
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Observational Study
The relationship between coagulation abnormality and mortality in ICU patients: a prospective, observational study.
We conducted a prospective, observational study to assess the prognostic value of hemostasis-related parameters in unselected ICU patients. We collected baseline characteristics from 497 consecutive unselected medical and trauma patients during their ICU stay. Each hemostasis-related parameter was analyzed alone or combined with APACHE II scores for any association with ICU mortality by calculating the under the curve (AUC) of the ROC curve, the net reclassification improvement (NRI) and integrated discrimination improvement (IDI) indices. ⋯ The combined use of FDPs level and APACHE II scores generated an NRI of 9.94% and an IDI of 3.54%. In conclusion, FDP is the best independent indicator of ICU mortality among all hemostasis-related indicators examined. The use of FDP level and APACHE II scores in parallel significantly improves the ability to predict ICU mortality, suggesting the application of these parameters could be used to improve patient care and management in the ICU.