[Black bone disease of the skull and facial bones]. / Coloration noire des os du crâne et de la face.

INTRODUCTION: We report the case of a patient with a craniofacial black bone disease. This was discovered accidentally during a coronal approach. CASE REPORT: A 38-year-old patient was referred to our unit for facial palsy having appeared 10 years before. Rehabilitation of the facial palsy was performed with a lengthening temporal myoplasty and lengthening of the upper eyelid elevator. An unusual black color of the skull was observed at incision of the coronal approach. Subperiostal dissection of skull and malars confirmed the presence of a black bone disease. A postoperative history revealed minocycline intake (200mg per day) during 3 years. DISCUSSION: This craniofacial black bone disease was caused by minocycline intake. The originality of this case is to see directly the entire craniofacial skeleton black. This abnormal pigmentation may affect various organs or tissues. Bone pigmentation is irreversible unlike that of the mouth mucosa or of the skin. This abnormal pigmentation is usually discovered accidentally.

Blood pressure cuff as a potential vector of pathogenic microorganisms: a prospective study in a teaching hospital.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the potential role of blood pressure (BP) cuffs in the spread of bacterial infections in hospitals. DESIGN: A comprehensive, prospective study quantitatively and qualitatively evaluating the bacterial contamination on BP cuffs of 203 sphygmomanometers in use in 18 hospital units from January through March 2003. SETTING: A university hospital with surgical, medical, and pediatric units. RESULTS: A level of contamination reaching 100 or more colony-forming units per 25 cm(2) was observed on 92 (45%) of inner sides and 46 (23%) of outer sides of 203 cuffs. The highest rates of contamination occurred on the inner side of BP cuffs kept in intensive care units (ICUs) (20 [83%] of 24) or on nurses' trolleys (27 [77%] of 35). None of the 18 BP cuffs presumed to be clean (ie, those that had not been used since the last decontamination procedure) had a high level of contamination. Potentially pathogenic microorganisms were isolated from 27 (13%) of the 203 BP cuffs: 20 of these microorganisms were Staphylococcus aureus, including 9 methicillin-resistant strains. The highest rates of contamination with potentially pathogenic microorganisms were observed on cuffs used in ICUs and those kept on nurses' trolleys. For 4 patients with a personal sphygmomanometer, a genetic link was found between the strains isolated from the BP cuffs and the strains isolated from the patients. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this survey highlight the importance of recognizing BP cuffs as potential vectors of pathogenic bacteria among patients and as a source of reinfection when dedicated to a single patient, emphasizing the urgent need for validated procedures for their use and maintenance.

[Consumption of hand-hygiene products in health establishments in the west of France]. / La consommation de produits d'hygiène des mains dans les établissements de soins dans l'interrégion Ouest.

OBJECTIVES: The study had for aim to investigate hand hygiene product use in French hospitals between 2000 and 2003. DESIGN: A questionnaire was sent in 2002 and 2 more in 2003 and 2004 (for 2000 to 2003) requiring data on type of hospital, number of beds, staff members, admissions and patient-day, litres of mild soap, antiseptic soap and alcohol-based rub used and price per litre. Indices were calculated accordingly. RESULTS: 574 hospitals answered over the 4 year period (average 143 per year) representing an average of 50 000 beds/year, 80 000 full-time staff positions, 1.2 million admissions and 16 millions patient-days. The median consumption of mild soap was 3.8 l per bed, 2.7 l per staff member, 2.4 l per 100 admissions, and 10.6 ml per patient-day. The median consumption of antiseptic soap was 1 l per bed, 0.8 l per staff member, 4.8 l per 100 admissions, and 3.2 ml per patient-day. The median consumption of alcohol-based rub (HAS) was 0.3 l per bed, 0.3 l per staff-member, 1.5 l per admission, and 0.9 l per patient-day. Between 2000 and 2003, HAS use significantly increased from 69 to 88% (a relative increase of 31%) and the median consumption increased from 0.5 ml to 1.5 ml per patient-day. 370 fully completed grids gave a number of 7 opportunities per patient-day with less than 1 for HAS. CONCLUSION: The best indicator for an infection control practitioners is the quantity of alcohol-based solution in ml/patient-day and HAS per patient-day is the reference.

A comparative study of randomly amplified polymorphic DNA analysis and conventional phage typing for epidemiological studies of Listeria monocytogenes isolates.

The analysis of RAPD profiles generated by PCR with a single 10-mer, HLWL74, was compared to bacteriophage susceptibility data for epidemiological typing of Listeria monocytogenes strains. A total of 104 L. monocytogenes strains was screened, all from serogroup 1 or serotype 4b. Of these, 53 had been isolated during 6 different listeriosis outbreaks. The remaining 51 strains were chosen randomly from our collection. A total of 38 RAPD types were observed, although each epidemic group of strains isolated during one of these outbreaks displayed a specific RAPD profile. For 98% of the strains isolated during outbreaks, the correlation between RAPD typing and phage typing was complete. Only one strain, typed as epidemic by phage typing, was clearly distinguishable from the others by RAPD analysis. Among the 51 strains not related to an outbreak, 12 were linked to epidemic groups by RAPD analysis. Two of these rearrangements were supported by phage typing. The remaining 10 strains could be excluded by phage typing from any of the epidemic groups studies. Considering all 104 isolates, the decision to relate a strain to a particular epidemic group or to exclude a strain from any epidemic group was the same for 92 isolates, using either phage typing or RAPD analysis. The RAPD analysis, which is quick, simple and suited for automation, is proposed as an attractive alternative for phage typing in epidemiological studies of listeriosis.

Typing of Staphylococcus epidermidis strains by random amplification of polymorphic DNA.

The polymerase chain reaction was used to obtain randomly amplified polymorphic DNA profiles for typing of Staphylococcus epidermidis strains. Epidemiologically unrelated S. epidermidis isolates were screened with randomly amplified polymorphic DNA analysis. The discriminating ability of 45 randomly designed 10-mer primers was assessed. The highest discriminatory power was obtained with the 10-mer oligonucleotide OPAM-12. In typing a total of 13 unrelated S. epidermidis strains with OPAM-12, 11 different banding profiles were obtained reproducibly by agarose gel electrophoresis. The discriminatory power of the method with OPAM-12 was estimated using the D value of Hunter and Gaston (1988) to be 0.961. A reproducibility index of 1 was obtained after typing a total of 40 cultures including 12 triplicates and one quadruplicate of the 13 unrelated strains. Following the described procedure, the randomly amplified polymorphic DNA method provided a rapid, simple and reproducible alternative to other S. epidermidis typing systems.

Spread of Stenotrophomonas maltophilia colonization in a pediatric intensive care unit detected by monitoring tracheal bacterial carriage and molecular typing.

In our pediatric intensive care unit in Tours (France), intubated and ventilated inpatients are systematically monitored for tracheal bacterial colonization twice a week. This led us to detect five patients colonized with Stenotrophomonas maltophilia over a 4-month period. Molecular typing of the isolates using random amplified polymorphism DNA (RAPD) and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) confirmed that four of the five isolates were genetically related. The strict isolation of carriers and improvements in hygiene measures stopped the spread. This systematic strategy prevented pulmonary nosocomial infections or allowed their early detection. Moreover, it has made it possible to assess the efficiency of care practices continuously.

Identification of new phages to type Staphylococcus aureus strains and comparison with a genotypic method.

The aim of this study was to optimize the epidemiological monitoring of strains of Staphylococcus aureus, a major cause of hospital-acquired infections. From September to December 1998 47 S. aureus strains isolated from swabs taken from orthopaedic and trauma patients were in studied. Thirty-five isolates were sensitive to methicillin (MSSA) and 12 were methicillin-resistant (MRSA). Ten of the 47 isolates could not be phage-typed using the international set of typing phages: five of these isolates were MSSA and five were MRSA. These MRSA isolates, which were also not typeable by the phages currently recommended for phage-typing MRSA, were lysed by locally isolated experimental phages 584 and 1814. Phage 1814 lysed the gentamicin-resistant MRSA and phage 584 acted on the gentamicin-sensitive MRSA. Both new phages were inactive against the methicillin-sensitive isolates. Cloning of certain isolates was confirmed by macrorestriction genomic profiles obtained by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis analysis (PFGE). The results showed good discriminatory ability of antibiotic-resistance pattern phenotyping and phage-typing when the phages used were adapted to epidemic-associated MRSA strains.

Assessment of the virulence of Listeria monocytogenes: agreement between a plaque-forming assay with HT-29 cells and infection of immunocompetent mice.

Some Listeria monocytogenes strains not related to clinical cases have been found to exhibit a low virulence level in mice as well as in an in vitro test using Caco-2 cells. The purpose of this study was to validate a new in vitro test of virulence based on a plaque-forming assay (PFA) using a HT-29 cell monolayer with 118 Listeria strains. The use of HT-29 cells in 96-well tissue culture plates allowed the testing of 30 strains per day and providing results in 24 h. In addition. statistical analyses demonstrated the reproducibility and repeatability of the PFA. No quantitative relationship was observed between the virulence of the strains and the hemolytic titer or the cytotoxic effects on HT-29 cells. In contrast, good agreement was observed between virulence assessed after subcutaneous (SC) infection and virulence obtained by PFA. Three groups of L. monocytogenes strains (avirulent, hypovirulent and fully virulent) were established by comparison of the clinical origin of the strains, the number of immunocompetent contaminated mice and the numbers of Listeria strains recovered in the spleen after SC infection. With one exception, i.e. a clinical case of L. seeligeri (sensitivity 0.98), the PFA successfully detected the virulent strains only (specificity 1). Decision-tree algorithms performed by SAS and S-Plus demonstrated that this tissue culture assay discriminated between the avirulent and hypovirulent strains and the virulent strains. This test could therefore be an alternative to in vivo tests, allowing grading of virulence.

Proposals for optimization of the international phage typing system for Listeria monocytogenes: combined analysis of phage lytic spectrum and variability of typing results.

Combined analysis of 5,179 serial phage reactions of 20 Listeria monocytogenes propagating strains over 14 years and phage typing results from 2,659 further L. monocytogenes strains allowed us to estimate lytic spectrum specificity and the variability of the lytic reactions of 35 phages. These included the 26 phages recommended for the international method for phage typing defined in 1985 by Rocourt et al. (J. Rocourt, A. Audurier, A. L. Courtieu, J. Durst, S. Ortel, A. Schrettenbrunner, and A. G. Taylor, Zentralbl. Bakteriol. Abt. 1 Orig. A 259:489-497, 1985). The results are discussed individually for each phage. Proposals for modifying the present system are made with the aim of producing an optimal bacteriophage set for routine use.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa from cystic fibrosis patients: study using whole cell RAPD and antibiotic susceptibility.

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is the most important bacterial pathogen in lung disease of cystic fibrosis patients. Different morphotypes of the bacterium are frequently recovered in sputum samples of these patients. We developed a whole cell Randomly Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) technique in order to establish the relatedness between morphotype, genotype and antibiotic susceptibility. Six cystic fibrosis patients already colonized by P. aeruginosa were investigated by collecting three successive sputum samples (before and after antibiotic treatment, and one month later) and selecting 10 isolates per morphotype. 250 isolates of P. aeruginosa were recovered from 16 of 18 sputum samples. Five patients carried a single RAPD type strain four of which showed at least two morphotypes; one patient carried two RAPD types strains. No patients carried the same strain. These results confirmed other studies previously published in showing stability of the chronic colonization with a single strain. Antibiotype differences were not associated with differences of RAPD profiles and no relation was found between antibiotype and morphotype.

Low sensitivity of Listeria monocytogenes to quaternary ammonium compounds.

Ninety-seven epidemiologically unrelated strains of Listeria monocytogenes were investigated for their sensitivities to quaternary ammonium compounds (benzalkonium chloride and cetrimide). The MICs for seven serogroup 1/2 strains were high. Three came from the environment and four came from food; none were isolated from human or animal samples. All 97 strains carried the mdrL gene, which encodes a multidrug efflux pump, and the orfA gene, a putative transcriptional repressor of mdrL. The absence of plasmids in four of the seven resistant strains and the conservation of resistance after plasmid curing suggested that the resistance genes are not plasmid borne. Moreover, PCR amplification and Southern blot hybridization experiments failed to find genes phylogenetically related to the qacA and smr genes, encoding multidrug efflux systems previously described for the genus Staphylococcus. The high association between nontypeability by phages and the loss of sensitivity to quaternary ammonium compounds are suggestive of an intrinsic resistance due to modifications in the cell wall.

Combined ribotyping and random multiprimer DNA analysis to probe the population structure of Listeria monocytogenes.

To improve our understanding of the genetic links between strains originating from food and strains responsible for human diseases, we studied the genetic diversity and population structure of 130 epidemiologically unrelated Listeria monocytogenes strains. Strains were isolated from different sources and ecosystems in which the bacterium is commonly found. We used rRNA gene restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis with two endonucleases and random multiprimer DNA analysis with seven oligonucleotide primers to study multiple genetic features of each strain. We used three clustering methods to identify genetic links between individual strains and to determine the precise genetic structure of the population. The combined results confirmed that L. monocytogenes strains can be divided into two major phylogenetic divisions. The method used allowed us to demonstrate that the genetic structure and diversity of the two phylogenetic divisions differ. Division I is the most homogeneous and can easily be divided into subgroups with dissimilarity distances of less than 0.30. Each of these subgroups mainly, or exclusively, contains a single serotype (1/2b, 4b, 3b, or 4a). The serotype 4a lineage appears to form a branch that is highly divergent from the phylogenetic group containing serotypes 1/2b, 4b, and 3b. Division II contains strains of serotypes 1/2a, 1/2c, and 3a. It exhibits more genetic diversity with no peculiar clustering. The fact that division II is more heterogeneous than division I suggests that division II evolved from a common ancestor earlier than division I. A significant association was found between division I and human strains, suggesting that strains from division I are better adapted to human hosts.