What Is Going on in Indoor Air Quality of a University Hospital in Northern Cyprus?

Background: There are two main purposes of microbial monitoring of the inanimate hospital environment. One of them is to monitor hygiene standards, and the second is to determine the presence of nosocomial pathogens. This study was aimed to investigate the indoor environment of the different departments of a university hospital. Methods: The prospective study was conducted in a university hospital, a teaching hospital with 143 beds and 30 ICU beds, and a hospital with 6 different wards in Northern Cyprus. Active air sampling was done by using an air IDEAL 3P device. Air samples were taken at 38 points defined before in different parts of the hospital. Results: Our results showed a low level of microorganisms' numbers in microbial airborne communities in a university hospital. Moreover, our results indicated that the temperature of the hospital's indoor environment is not significantly related to the airborne microbial community. On the other hand, our results indicate that the Aspergillus species were mostly isolated in the drug preparation room. Conclusion: The studies have shown that one of the causes of hospital infections is the microorganisms entering the airborne microbial communities. In this case, epidemiology and pathogenesis of airborne microbial communities should be understood.

Ocular response analyzer to assess corneal biomechanical properties in exfoliation syndrome and exfoliative glaucoma.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this work was to investigate the differences in corneal biomechanical parameters between healthy and exfoliation syndrome (EXS) and exfoliative glaucoma (EXG) patients. METHODS: Two hundred and forty-four eyes of 102 healthy, 64 EXS, and 78 EXG patients were included in the study. Corneal biomechanical parameters were measured using an ocular response analyzer (ORA). Central corneal thickness (CCT) was measured with an ultrasonic pachymeter. The differences in ORA parameters between study and control group participants were analyzed using Student's t test. RESULTS: In healthy subjects, EXS and EXG eyes mean corneal hysteresis (CH) values were 9.4 ± 1.4 mmHg, 8.5 ± 1.5 mmHg and 6.9 ± 2.1 mmHg, respectively. The difference in mean CH between the EXG and the other two groups were statistically significant (p < 0.01 for both comparisons). CH was significantly lower in EXS patients than that of healthy eyes (p < 0.001). Mean corneal resistance factor (CRF) values were 9.8 ± 1.6 mmHg, 9.3 ± 1.8 mmHg and 9.5 ± 2.6 mmHg, respectively. Except for the difference between the control and EXS eyes (p = 0.004), no statistically significant difference was found between the groups in relation to mean CRF. There were no significant differences in CCT between the control eyes and exfoliative eyes with or without glaucoma. CONCLUSIONS: In this study, CH was found to be significantly lower in eyes with exfoliation. Further studies are needed to establish the relationships between exfoliation, ocular biomechanics, and glaucoma.