Prevalence of significant bacteriuria among symptomatic and asymptomatic homozygous sickle cell disease patients in a tertiary hospital in Lagos, Nigeria.

BACKGROUND: Patients with sickle cell disease have an amplified vulnerability to urinary tract infection, because of abnormally dilute and alkaline urine, which favors bacterial proliferation. This is due to altered blood flow in the renal vasculature, which causes papillary necrosis and loss of urinary concentrating and acidifying ability of the nephrons. Asymptomatic bacteriuria is common, but the prevalence in populations varies widely with age, gender, sexual activity and the presence of genitourinary abnormalities. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of significant bacteriuria in symptomatic and asymptomatic sickle cell patients in Lagos. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study of patients attending the sickle cell clinics of Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja. Single voided aseptically collected mid-stream urine was obtained from each patient and all samples processed immediately, were sent for urinalysis and culture. Isolates were considered significant if there were ≥10 5 colony forming units per milliliter (CFU/ml) with two or less isolates, doubtful significance if ≤10 5 CFU/ml. Significant isolates were selected for identification. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 16.0 (SPSS, Inc., Chicago, Ill). RESULTS: A total of 100 consenting participants were recruited into the study. The mean age was: 23.42 ± 8.31 years and a range of 14-50 years. Only 9% (9/100) had significant bacteriuria while 44.4% (4/9) participants who had significant bacteriuria were asymptomatic. Escherichia coli was isolated in 66.6% (6/9) participants who had significant bacteriuria while Klebsiella oxytoca, Klebsiella pneumonia and Staphylococcus aureus (11.11%) was isolated in each of the remaining three participants. CONCLUSIONS: Significant bacteriuria is found in only one-tenth of sickle cell patients, nearly half of the participants who had significant growth had asymptomatic bacteriuria.

LHRH-Conjugated Drugs as Targeted Therapeutic Agents for the Specific Targeting and Localized Treatment of Triple Negative Breast Cancer.

Bulk chemotherapy and drug release strategies for cancer treatment have been associated with lack of specificity and high drug concentrations that often result in toxic side effects. This work presents the results of an experimental study of cancer drugs (prodigiosin or paclitaxel) conjugated to Luteinizing Hormone-Releasing Hormone (LHRH) for the specific targeting and treatment of triple negative breast cancer (TNBC). Injections of LHRH-conjugated drugs (LHRH-prodigiosin or LHRH-paclitaxel) into groups of 4-week-old athymic female nude mice (induced with subcutaneous triple negative xenograft breast tumors) were found to specifically target, eliminate or shrink tumors at early, mid and late stages without any apparent cytotoxicity, as revealed by in vivo toxicity and ex vivo histopathological tests. Our results show that overexpressed LHRH receptors serve as binding sites on the breast cancer cells/tumor and the LHRH-conjugated drugs inhibited the growth of breast cells/tumor in in vitro and in vivo experiments. The inhibitions are attributed to the respective adhesive interactions between LHRH molecular recognition units on the prodigiosin (PGS) and paclitaxel (PTX) drugs and overexpressed LHRH receptors on the breast cancer cells and tumors. The implications of the results are discussed for the development of ligand-conjugated drugs for the specific targeting and treatment of TNBC.