Attitude of employees of a university clinic to complementary and alternative medicine in oncology.

BACKGROUND: Cancer patients often use complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), yet discussion with the oncologist is often missing and oncologists lack knowledge in CAM. PATIENTS AND METHODS: In order to learn more about the attitude of professionals in oncology toward CAM, a survey was conducted on employees of a German university clinic using a structured questionnaire. RESULTS: In total, 547 employees took part in the survey. One-third would definitely use CAM on cancer patients. Female employees are more interested in CAM than males (80% versus 20%; P = 0.001); physicians are less interested than nurses (57% versus 72%; P = 0.008). 2.5% of physicians and 9% of nurses are convinced that CAM is as effective as conventional therapy in cancer. Fifty-two percent of physicians and 12% of nurses agree that adverse effects due to CAM may be possible. Seventy-three percent did not consider themselves adequately informed on CAM for their professional work. CONCLUSIONS: As a substantial part of participants would use CAM on cancer patients and most are interested in but not trained on this topic, there is a need for training of professionals from different professions working in oncology.

[MRSA--current aspects of resistance, pathology, epidemiology and therapy]. / MRSA--aktuelle Aspekte der Resistenzentwicklung, Pathomechanismen, Epidemiologie und Therapie.

The Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) resistant against all kinds of beta-lactam antibiotics. Moreover, resistances against other antibiotics have gradually started to develop. In the last decades, MRSA started as a serious problem only in hospitals, but in recent years it also rose as an alarming community pathogen. In addition to the resistances against Penicillin which emerged in the 1940s. with the use of beta-lactamase proof antibiotics in the 1960s, the resistance of S. aureus against Methicillin started to develop. According to the kind of resistance, the genotype, the time of infection and the origin of the infection, MRSA infections are classified as hospital-associated (HA-MRSA) and community-associated (cMRSA). On the one hand, this differentiation results in distinct strategies of calculated therapy against each class of MRSA. On the other hand, it is important in order to identify relevant judicious aspects of transmission.