Total knee arthroplasty in women with asymptomatic urinary tract infection.

PURPOSE: To compare early outcome after total knee arthroplasty (TKA) in women with a positive or negative urine culture. METHODS: 128 women underwent bilateral (n=89) or unilateral (n=39) primary TKA. Diabetes mellitus was present in 38%, obesity in 53%, and asymptomatic urinary tract infection (positive urine culture) in 36% of women. Women with a positive or negative urine culture were compared. RESULTS: In the 46 women with a positive urine culture, Escherichia coli (n=29) and Klebsiella (n=17) were grown. Women with a positive or negative urine culture were comparable in terms of the incidence of diabetes (28% vs. 43%, p=0.1), obesity (52% vs. 54%, p=0.87), fever (9% vs. 15%, p=0.32), leucocytosis (28% vs. 17%, p=0.13), and delayed wound healing (0% vs. 1%, p=0.45). CONCLUSION: Women with or without a positive urine culture had comparable early complication rates following TKA.

An Evaluation of the Point-of-Care Analyzer, i-Smart 30, for Measurement of Electrolytes.

Analytical functioning of a point-of-care analyzer, i-Smart 30 (i-sens: Seoul, South Korea), for electrolyte quantification was investigated at Sant Parmanand Hospital, a tertiary-care hospital in Delhi, India. Samples that were received for electrolyte assay were assayed, double-blinded for their Na and K level using the arterial blood gas analyzer, the ABL 555 (Radiometer, Copenhagen) and the i-Smart 30 electrolyte analyzer. There was satisfactory correlation between the results obtained with the two analyzers with an encouraging bias, standard deviation and the 95 % limits of agreement between the data generated for Na and K levels. The performance of the i-Smart 30 would be satisfactory during the point-of-care measurements of Na and K levels in emergency rooms and clinical laboratories with inadequate infrastructure only if its day-to-day performance was monitored to ensure reliability of the generated reports.

Apropos: 'Preliminary evaluation on the efficiency of the kit Platelia Dengue NS1 Ag-ELISA to detect dengue virus in dried Aedes aegypti: a potential tool to improve dengue surveillance'.

Only simple, point-of-care, assay formats of the Platellia Dengue NS1 Ag-ELISA would be suitable to identify Dengue virus in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes in dengue-endemic areas lacking sophisticated laboratory infrastructure and trained laboratory personnel.

Impact of clinical syndrome-wise categorisation of antimicrobial susceptibility profiles on nosocomial isolates in a tertiary care hospital in Delhi, India.

The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of clinical syndrome-wise categorisation of antimicrobials on the antibiotic susceptibility of nosocomial bacteria at a tertiary care hospital in Delhi, India. The susceptibility of 226 nosocomial bacterial isolates collected during 2008-2011 to meropenem, piperacillin/tazobactam, cefepime, tigecycline, amoxicillin/clavulanic acid (AMC), amikacin, ceftriaxone and ciprofloxacin was monitored and was compared with the antibiotic susceptibility profiles of 72 isolates collected during 2002-2007. During 2008-2011, the isolates included 85% Gram-negative isolates and 15% meticillin-sensitive staphylococci. There was no difference in the susceptibility of the isolates between 2002 and 2007 and 2008-2011, except for a significant increase in Escherichia coli isolates susceptible to AMC (from 73% to 100%), amikacin (70-100%) and cefepime (22-86%), in Klebsiella isolates susceptible to ciprofloxacin (from 25% to 80%) and cefepime (45-75%) and in Pseudomonas isolates susceptible to AMC (from 25% to 86%). In conclusion, during the past decade a clinical syndrome-wise categorisation of antimicrobials in frequent usage as well as culture-based categorisation of infections into nosocomial/community-acquired was useful in establishing the generally insignificant change in the susceptibility of nosocomial isolates and an upsurge in the susceptibility of some isolates to a few antimicrobials. Regular updates on drifts in the antimicrobial susceptibility of local isolates and surveillance of nosocomial infections would be valuable for tackling the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.