ABSTRACT This article is to alert medical mycologists and infectious disease specialists of recent name changes of medically important species of the filamentous mold Fusarium. Fusarium species can ...cause localized and life-threating infections in humans. Of the 70 Fusarium species that have been reported to cause infections, close to one-third are members of the Fusarium solani species complex (FSSC), and they collectively account for approximately two-thirds of all reported Fusarium infections. Many of these species were recently given scientific names for the first time by a research group in the Netherlands, but they were misplaced in the genus Neocosmospora. In this paper, we present genetic arguments that strongly support inclusion of the FSSC in Fusarium. There are potentially serious consequences associated with using the name Neocosmospora for Fusarium species because clinicians need to be aware that fusaria are broadly resistant to the spectrum of antifungals that are currently available.
Several Fusarium species are associated with wheat stems in New Zealand, but there are no detailed reports on the relative abundance and distribution of these species. Hence, a survey was conducted ...on the South Island of New Zealand to assess the frequency of isolation of Fusarium species associated with randomly collected wheat stem bases and seven grass species. A total of 11 Fusarium species were isolated from wheat stem bases, six of which were also isolated from the other grasses. Putative isolates of the known wheat pathogens F. culmorum and F. pseudograminearum were recovered from wheat and grass stem bases. Fusarium culmorum was isolated from 16% of all wheat stems compared with F. pseudograminearum which was only isolated from 1.5% of the wheat stems. Amplified fragment length polymorphism analysis revealed five distinct clusters among the isolates analysed. These clusters correspond to four pathogenic species, F. pseudograminearum, F. culmorum, F. crookwellense and F. graminearum, based on the sequence of the Tef-1 (translation elongation factor-1 alpha ) gene. Isolates from the grass Chionochloa rubra ssp. cuprea which were putatively identified as F. pseudograminearum based on morphological features were found to be isolates of F. graminearum that could not form perithecia homothallically under laboratory conditions. Molecular characterisation confirmed the association of F. pseudograminearum with wheat stem bases, and indicated that there is some genetic divergence between isolates of this important pathogen recovered on the North and the South Islands of New Zealand.
Unlike antibodies produced in rabbits and other animals, mouse antibodies have proved to be difficult to covalently label with fluorochromes. By careful control of the labelling conditions, a method ...has been established for labelling mouse Thy-1 antibodies obtained by immunisation with normal thymus cells. The resultant FITC Thy-1 antibodies suffer little loss in cytotoxic properties, react with the correct specificity and can be used to label Thy-1 positive cells.
Whole lung sections (Gough-Wentworth) have been prepared after formalin liquid distension of the lungs from 643 necropsies performed in Jamaica. These included 572 Negro (African), 18 East Indian, 25 ...Chinese, and 28 white cases. Emphysematous change was assessed visually by comparison with a standard set of sections from Cardiff which were similar to those adopted by the Ciba Guest Symposium in 1959. Severe destructive emphysema was present in 1·8% of males and in 1·0% of females. Emphysema was more severe, and more frequent, in males than in females, while both sexes showed an increasing frequency and severity with advancing years. No appreciable racial difference was seen, except that `focal' emphysema, which includes the centrilobular type, was somewhat more frequent in East Indians than in the other racial groups. These observations indicate the occurrence of emphysema of the more common types in a hot climate which is apparently free of atmospheric pollution.
Taxonomic novelties: Cladosporium acalyphae Bensch, H.D. Shin, Crous & U. Braun, sp. nov., C. angustisporum Bensch, Summerell, Crous & U. Braun, sp. nov., C. asperulatum Bensch, Crous & U. Braun, sp. ...nov., C. australiense Bensch, Summerell,
Crous & U. Braun, sp. nov., C. basiinflatum Bensch, Crous & U. Braun, sp. nov., C. chalastosporoides Bensch, Crous & U. Braun, sp. nov., C. exasperatum Bensch, Summerell, Crous & U. Braun, sp. nov., C. exile Bensch, Glawe, Crous & U. Braun, sp.
nov., C. flabelliforme Bensch, Summerell, Crous & U. Braun, sp. nov., C. globisporum Bensch, Crous & U. Braun, sp. nov., C. hillianum Bensch, Crous & U. Braun, sp. nov., C. inversicolor Bensch, Crous & U. Braun, sp. nov., C. iranicum Bensch,
Crous & U. Braun, sp. nov., C. paracladosporioides Bensch, Crous & U. Braun, sp. nov., C. perangustum Bensch, Crous & U. Braun, sp. nov., C. phyllactiniicola Bensch, Glawe, Crous & U. Braun, sp. nov., C. pseudocladosporioides Bensch, Crous &
U. Braun, sp. nov., C. rectoides Bensch, H.D. Shin, Crous & U. Braun, sp. nov., C. scabrellum Bensch, Schroers, Crous & U. Braun, sp. nov., C. subuliforme Bensch, Crous & U. Braun, sp. nov., C. verrucocladosporioides Bensch, H.D. Shin, Crous & U.
Braun, sp. nov., C. xylophilum Bensch, Shabunin, Crous & U. Braun, sp. nov.
The pyrrolizidine alkaloid, fulvine, is now accepted as a major cause of veno-occlusive disease of the liver in the West Indies, where it is ingested as a decoction of the plant Crotalaria fulva in ...bush tea. Fulvine is similar in chemical structure to monocrotaline, which is known to cause pulmonary hypertension in rats. Thirty young female rats were given a single dose of fulvine either by intraperitoneal injection (50 mg/kg body weight) or by stomach tube (80 mg/kg body weight). Eleven of these rats died of acute haemorrhagic centrilobular necrosis of the liver, and two of pneumonia, within 23 days of receiving fulvine. These 13 showed no evidence of hypertensive pulmonary vascular disease. The remaining 17 rats (which survived from 24 to 37 days) developed hypertensive pulmonary vascular disease with right ventricular hypertrophy together with medial thickening of the pulmonary trunk and muscular pulmonary arteries. The pulmonary arterioles showed hypertensive changes and some contained thrombi. In four animals an acute necrotizing arteritis also occurred. We have shown that fulvine resembles monocrotaline in its ability to produce pulmonary hypertension in rats. We suggest that, in any patient presenting with unexplained pulmonary hypertension, a careful enquiry should be made to elicit the possibility of recent ingestion of drugs or plant extracts that may have caused a rise in the pulmonary arterial pressure.
Study Objective: To increase the contact rate with eligible patients for quality assurance/ improvement surveys by modifying survey rounds to accommodate the schedules of individual nursing units.
...Design: Two-phase, interventional time series study.
Setting: Postoperative inpatients at a university hospital.
Patients: 498 adult postoperative inpatients who remained hospitalized during the second postoperative day.
Interventions: Between the first and second measurement periods, efforts were made to learn the schedule of each nursing unit and to improve the efficiency of survey rounds so that a larger proportion of patients could be contacted.
Measurements and Main Results: The contact rate for eligible patients was improved from 66% to 80% (
p < 0.01). Improvement during the second period was attributed to fewer patients being away from the nursing unit (20%
vs. 12%,
p < 0.05) or otherwise occupied by attending physicians on rounds (9%
vs. 4%,
p < 0.05).
Conclusion: Strategies individualized to patient care units can improve the efficiency and credibility of inpatient survey research. We describe the strategies most helpful in improving the efficiency of survey rounds at one medical center.
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