[Asthma in clinical practice: from inflammatory phenotypes to personalized treatment]. / L'asthme bronchique en pratique clinique : des phénotypes inflammatoires au traitement personnalisé.

Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the airways. Classification of asthma in different phenotypes has therapeutic implications and may lead to personalized medicine. Induced sputum is the gold standard for asthma phenotyping but is complex, time-consuming and not widely available. The combination of different biomarkers such as exhaled nitric oxide, blood eosinophils and total serum IgE levels allows the prediction of inflammatory phenotype in 58% of asthmatic patients when sputum is not available. We recently demonstrated the interest of measuring volatile organic compounds in exhaled breath to phenotype asthma. These compounds could play an important role in the future to predict the response to expensive biologicals available in severe asthma to reduce exacerbations and the use of systemic corticosteroids.

: L'asthme est une pathologie inflammatoire chronique des voies respiratoires. Classer l'asthme en différents phénotypes inflammatoires a des implications thérapeutiques importantes et peut conduire à un traitement personnalisé. Le gold standard pour l'établissement du phénotype inflammatoire est l'analyse de l'expectoration induite qui est une technique complexe, difficilement accessible en routine. La combinaison de plusieurs biomarqueurs d'intérêt tels le monoxyde d'azote dans l'air exhalé, l'éosinophilie systémique et le taux d'IgE sérique permet de prédire correctement le phénotype inflammatoire dans 58% des cas. Récemment, nous avons également mis en évidence l'intérêt de la détection de molécules dans l'haleine. Ces composés organiques volatiles pourraient représenter des biomarqueurs futurs de la réponse au traitement, spécialement dans l'asthme sévère, pour lequel des traitements ciblés coûteux sont actuellement disponibles en vue de réduire les exacerbations et le recours aux corticostéroïdes oraux.

Development of a standardized susceptibility test for campylobacter with quality-control ranges for ciprofloxacin, doxycycline, erythromycin, gentamicin, and meropenem.

A standardized agar dilution susceptibility testing method was developed for Campylobacter that consisted of testing on Mueller-Hinton medium supplemented with 5% defibrinated sheep blood in an atmosphere of 10% CO2, 5% O2, and 85% N2. Campylobacter jejuni ATCC 33560 was identified as a quality-control (QC) strain. Minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) QC ranges were determined for two incubation time/temperature combinations: 36 degrees C for 48 hr and 42 degrees C for 24 hr. Quality-control ranges were determined for ciprofloxacin, doxycycline, erythromycin, gentamicin, and meropenem. For all antimicrobial agents tested at both temperatures, 95-100% of the QC MIC results fell within recommended QC ranges. Twenty-one Campylobacter clinical isolates, encompassing five species of Campylobacter (C. jejuni, C. coli, C. jejuni, subsp. doylei, C. fetus, and C. lari) were tested in conjunction with the C. jejuni QC strain. While C. jejuni and C. coli could be reliably tested under both test conditions, growth of C. jejuni subsp. doylei, C. fetus, and C. lari isolates was inconsistent when incubated at 42 degrees C. Therefore, it is recommended that these species only be tested at 36 degrees C.

Detergentes aniônicos: método alternativo como emético; estudo comparativo de eficácia e latência com xarope de ipeca

Os autores comparam a eficiência de detergentes aniônicos e xarope de ipeca na induçäo de emese em 26 pacientes. Encontram melhores resultados com os detergentes e admitem sua utilizaçäo como uma forma alternativa