International Journal of Infection
Volume:9 Issue: 4, Oct 2022

 Sepsis is a syndrome involving physiological, pathological, and biochemical abnormalities caused by infection and leads to the dysfunction of various organs, including the liver and kidneys. It can lead to high mortality rates.

 This study aimed to evaluate the hepatic, renal, and coagulation diagnostic markers in patients with sepsis.

 This cross-sectional analytical study was performed on patients with sepsis admitted to Abadan and Khorramshahr educational hospitals during March 21 2019-March 19, 2020. The hospital information system (HIS) collected the information of 305 patients with sepsis, including hepatic, coagulation, and renal diagnostic factors, as well as age and gender.

 It was observed that the mean of blood sugar (BS) (145.82 ± 105.10 mg/dL), BUN (29.64 ± 27.41 mg/dL), and creatinine (1.69±1.9 mg/dL) in sepsis patients was higher than normal. In addition, the mean of diagnostic markers of the liver, including ALT (47.27 ± 76.63 U/L), AST (74.38 ± 163.96 U/L), LDH (684.69 ± 383.96 U/L), total bilirubin (1.39 ± 1.02 mg/dL), and direct bilirubin (0.60 ± 0.65 mg/dL), was higher than normal. The mean of PT (16.73±9.31 sec) and INR (1.72 ± 1.53) was also higher than the normal level.

 In hospitalized patients with sepsis, BS, renal diagnostic markers, hepatic diagnostic markers, and coagulation markers are higher than normal, indicating the destructive effect of sepsis on kidney and liver function.

Coagulase-negative staphylococci (CoNS) are rolled in severe infections in animals and nosocomial infections in humans. Given that staphylococci other than Staphylococcus aureus are often reported only as CoNS in medical diagnosis laboratories, this study aimed to determine the exact species of this type of staphylococci in clinical samples.

This study also aimed to evaluate antibiotic resistance, the ability to carry cfr, qacA/B, mecA, and vanA genes, and the diversity of staphylococcal cassette chromosome mec (SCCmec) elements in mecA-carrying isolates.

Staphylococcus spp. strains were isolated from the blood samples of children admitted to Imam Reza Hospital in Bojnurd, Northeastern Iran, between 2013 - 2019. All CoNS isolates were evaluated for resistance to vancomycin and oxacillin using agar screening and other routine anti-CoNS antibiotics using the Kirby-Bauer disk diffusion method, based on the latest Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute guidelines. The CoNS strains were isolated based on conventional methods and polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-restriction fragment length polymorphism. The PCR was applied to determine the diversity of SCCmec elements in the CoNS isolates.

In this study, 203 isolates were confirmed as CoNS belonging to nine staphylococci spp. S. capitis and S. epidermidis were the top two common CoNS. Type III was the dominant SCCmec type in mecA+ isolates.

The findings of this study showed that CoNS isolated from blood cultures have a relatively high diversity and antibiotic resistance. Therefore, further attention should be paid to the isolation of these strains in laboratories, and they should not be easily considered as contamination.

 Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) on maintenance hemodialysis are highly vulnerable to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection and poorer outcomes and mortality.

 The study aimed at identifying the various clinical and biochemical predictors of in-hospital mortality in this particular group of patients.

 In this retrospective cohort study, the baseline demographic, clinical, and laboratory data were collected from patients with preexisting CKD on maintenance hemodialysis and with COVID-19 infection. The statistical analysis of the collected data was performed using SPSS version 24 (SPSS Inc, Chicago, IL, USA).

 The data obtained from 35 patients from the first wave of the pandemic were analyzed. The mortality rate was 23% (8 patients). Analyzing the comparison between survivors and non-survivors revealed that the older age (49 [IQR, 42 – 55] years vs. 70 [IQR, 54 – 74] years, P = 0.016), severe disease at presentation (15% vs. 75%, P = 0.004), and need for invasive mechanical ventilation (0% vs. 75%, P = 0.001) were the factors significantly associated with in-hospital mortality. Among baseline biochemical markers, severe lymphocytopenia (11 [IQR, 7 – 16] vs. 4.2 [IQR, 3 – 8], P = 0.011), high serum glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase (23 [IQR, 15.6 – 48] vs. 80 [IQR, 60- 105], P = 0.001), blood urea (71 [IQR, 28 - 120) vs. 160 (IQR, 142 - 355), P = 0.002) and higher value of inflammatory markers, interleukin-6 (IL-6), and procalcitonin, as well as fibrinogen and low baseline albumin, were also significantly associated with in-hospital mortality.

 The older age, severe disease at presentation, need for invasive mechanical ventilation, raised baseline IL-6, procalcitonin, serum glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase, blood urea, and lower level of albumin may have been valuable predictors of in-hospital mortality and poor outcomes in patients with COVID-19-infected chronic kidney disease on maintenance hemodialysis.

 The World Health Organization has identified leishmaniosis as one of the eight major tropical parasitic diseases in the world. Every year, from 0.7 million to 1.3 million new cases of cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) are registered in the world. Cutaneous leishmaniasis is still a great health problem in Iran. Of the total annual cases of leishmaniasis in Iran, about 80% are related to rural cutaneous leishmaniasis, 5% to visceral leishmaniasis and the rest are related to urban cutaneous leishmaniasis. this study aimed to investigate the epidemiological factors in patients with cutaneous leishmaniasis.

 A total of 2119 patients afflicted with cutaneous leishmaniosis due to skin lesions were examined. The data were analyzed after entering the data into SPSS software, vol 26. Tables and graphs were used for displaying the qualitative variables; central indicators and dispersion were used for indicating quantitative variables, and chi-square test was used for analyzing the data. The level of P ≤ 0.05 was considered as the level of significance.

 The mean age of 2119 patients was 28.32 ± 20.38 years. Furthermore, 65.2% of male patients and 34.8% of female ones were infected with the disease. As for the nationality of the patients, 81.8% of them were Iranians and 18.1% of them were Afghans, and 88.9% of them had a history of traveling to other areas. More than 51% of the cases occurred in the young age group, the age group of 21 to 30 years had the highest incidence (18.4%), and the incidence trend of the disease did not decrease. There was a statistically significant relationship between patients’ nationality and travel history, gender, and occupation (P = 0.0001). There was no statistically significant relationship between the incidence season and travel history (P = 0.221).

 Due to the patients’ travel to endemic areas, providing them with training on effective methods for preventing mosquito bites may have had a great impact on reducing the incidences of cutaneous leishmaniosis in travelers.

 Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) is a receptor for SARS-CoV-2, expressed in many organs’ cells, including the thyroid gland. Therefore, COVID-19 may influence thyroid gland function.

 In this article, we aimed to investigate the thyroid gland function in COVID-19 patients and compare them to healthy society to indicate whether thyroid hormones level differ in the disease or not.

 This is a single-center retrospective case-control, cross-sectional study on 191 COVID-19 patients and 179 non-COVID-19 individuals as the control group. The status of the thyroid hormones was determined in COVID-19 patients and then compared with the control group. Patients in the case group were divided into 2 groups with and without normal thyroid function and were compared with each other in different aspects of COVID-19. Also, we compared thyroid hormone levels in the patient group with different underlying diseases to show the status of thyroid function in COVID-19 infection.

 Of the 191 COVID-19 patients, 98 (51.3%) were male, and the mean age of patients was 64 ± 15 years. The thyrotropin level was lower in the patient group than in the control group (1.34 ± 1.29 vs. 2.21 ± 1.99; P < 0.001). The T3 status was meaningfully associated with the level of SpO2 (P < 0.05; r = -0.258). The results demonstrated that thyrotropin (P = 0.653), T3 (P = 0.404), and T4 (P = 0.147) levels were not different in expired and discharged patients. The 2 groups of patients with and without normal thyrotropin levels did not appear significantly different in any aspect of the disease.

 Thyrotropin level was lower in COVID-19 patients, and the T3 level can predict the SpO2 level. The thyroid gland may be theoretically affected by SARS-CoV-2 infection.