Prevalence of KPC-producing bacteria in negative gram of clinical samples obtained from patients.

Objective: Carbapenems are beta-lactam antibiotics that can play an important role in infections with multiple and severe resistance. The aim of this study was to investigate the frequency of carbapenem-producing bacteria in gram-negative isolates of clinical samples obtained from patients. Methods: 291 g-negative bacilli were isolated from the samples of hospitalized patients using gram staining method, conventional methods and biochemical tests. The antibiotic susceptibility of the isolates was determined using the agar disk diffusion method for 5 different antibiotics. Strains that were resistant to Meropenem antibiotic, KPC enzyme production was examined by the Modified Hodge test method. Results: Out of 291 g-negative bacilli, 14 isolates showed resistance to Meropenem by a disk agar diffusion method where 12 (85.8%) strains were producing KPC enzyme. The highest frequency of Gram-negative KPC-producing bacilli was related to Klebsiella pneumoniae and the most positive samples were urine. The prevalence of this type of bacteria was highest in NICU and the male internal ward, respectively. Conclusion: It was shown that carbapenem-resistant strains are considered as a growing problem in hospitals, especially in the intensive care unit for children and men.

Evaluation of exposure to secondhand smoke and serum level of interleukin 18 in non-smokers.

OBJECTIVE: Smoking is one significant global health care problems, that not only affects the users but also endangers the health of people inhaling the smoke (passive smoking/secondhand smoke). The serum level of IL-18, an important regulator of inherent and acquired immune response, is affected by cigarette smoking. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure on IL-18 serum level in non-smoker adults. METHODS: In a case-control study, using easy sampling method, 76 non-smokers who were exposed to cigarette smoke for at least 1 h daily during the past year were considered as exposure group, while 76 of their companions without exposure to cigarette smoke (after matching age) were considered as non-exposure group. Serum IL-18 levels were measured for all participants and finally compared between the two groups using Chi-square test. P value < 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. RESULTS: The exposure and non-exposure groups included 58 (76.3%) and 25 (32.9%) males, respectively (P < 0.001). The mean ± SD of age for the exposure and non-exposure groups was 35.42 ± 10.37 and 38.47 ± 12.49 years, respectively (P = 0.102). There was no significant difference between the mean serum levels of IL-18 in the exposure (54.81 ± 57.03 ng/ml) and non-exposure (41.49 ± 42.14 ng/ml) groups (P = 0.104). CONCLUSION: The exposure to secondhand smoke has no significant effect on serum level of IL-18 in exposed adult individuals. However, more studies with larger sample sizes on different populations are required to confirm these results.