[Risk factors and sensitivity to certain antibiotics in hospital urinary infections]. / Fattori di rischio e sensibilità ad alcuni chemioantibiotici nelle infezioni urinarie ospedaliere.

Urinary infections contracted in hospital are one of the most important health problems. The present paper looks at 549 hospitalised patients and 548 subjects referred to the laboratory for routine tests over a period of 6 months. The results showed a higher number of hospital infections in the Medicine Department and this number was directly proportional to certain risk factors such as the presence of a catheter at home, the greater age of patients and a poorer physical condition. The strains most frequently isolated were E. coli and Pseudomonas spp although percentages were different between out-patients and hospitalised patients. The infections in question might be reduced and, at least partially, controlled by means of stricter hygiene on the part of personnel and by a moderate use of vesical catheterism.

[Arterial hypertension with hypokalemia]. / Ipertensione arteriosa con ipopotassiemia.

After a careful review of the literature on physiopathological role of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system in cases of arterial hypertension with hypokalaemia, a simple diagnostic procedure is suggested to differentiate between this and secondary hypertensions which, though few, are often curable. Three clinical cases examined in the medical department of Casalpusterlengo Hospital are presented in which the study of the renin-angiotensin system proved decisive for a correct diagnosis of the hypertension.