Active clinical trials for "Communicable Diseases"

Prenatal supplementation with fish oil, rich in omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, is widely recommended in Canada. The aim of this observational, prospective cohort study is to determine the effects of maternal fish oil supplements on the development of their infants' gut microbiota and immunity.

Pharmacists in some Canadian jurisdictions have recently been granted the ability to prescribe for uncomplicated urinary tract infections (UTIs). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to assess the impact that community pharmacists can have on the management of UTIs. Pharmacists will identify potential study participants (patients) when they either present with symptoms of a UTI (such as difficulty or painful urination, increased frequency or urgency of urination) without a prescription for an antibiotic from another health care provider, or when they present with a prescription for an antibiotic from another health care provider to treat a UTI. For patients who consent to participate in the study, the pharmacist will screen for eligibility and assess for appropriateness of treatment. If the patient does not already have a prescription for an antibiotic from another health care provider, the pharmacist will prescribe this for them if they meet certain criteria. If they do already have a prescription from another health care provider, the pharmacist will assess the appropriateness of the prescription and work with the patient to potentially change it to make it more appropriate, if necessary. If the pharmacist identifies any complicating factors that require a physician's assessment, the patient will be referred to their physician. The enrolled patients will also have a 2-week follow-up to assess for resolution of symptoms, unintended effects, and adherence to the treatment regimen. All data will be collected in a web-based registry that will maintain the patient's confidentiality outside of the pharmacy (i.e. patient initials, date of birth, and study identification (ID) number will be the only patient identifiers collected by the researchers). A patient satisfaction survey will also be administered via email.

The purpose of this study is to determine if the infiltration of 0.5% Bupivacaine in the surgical wound is effective to diminish the pain and the risk of surgical site infections in patients who go to a open gastrointestinal procedure.

This is an open-labelled two-arm pilot comparative prospective study. All the subjects will undergo image assessment in the two stages of exchange arthroplasty surgery. At the first stage, each enrolled subject will receive both FDG and Ga68 citrate PET/CT scans before the first operation for periprosthetic Joint Infection (PJI). Thus, the test results of FDG and Ga68 for each individual can be obtained. After the first operation, the surgery/biopsy proof can be obtained as the gold standard. The subjects those with PJI negative will complete the process at the first stage. And the second stage of this study will be based on the subjects with positive PJI from the first operation. They will receive both FDG and Ga68 citrate PET/MR scans after antibiotic bone cement was implanted. The sensitivity/accuracy of the two tracers for PET/MR can be calculated and compared. This stage is aimed to answer whether PET/MR scan is a feasible imaging tool to provide diagnostic information of infection control status after the resection arthroplasty of hip/knee PJIs, especially with the implantation of antibiotic loaded bone cement. In the second stage, the investigators shift the imaging modality to PET/MR based on the following reasons: (1) MRI itself has no radiation burden; (2) MRI provides more accurate tissue contrast information and therefore better anatomic delineation; and (3) currently there was no study indicating the existence of ABLC may hamper the interpretation of images. The study duration is expected to be completed in a period of 3 year. It plans to enrol a total of 40 evaluable subjects with suspicious. And we expect the PJI prevalence will be around 75%, i.e. the anticipated number of subjects of true PJI is around 30. The sample size and the prevanence is given based on the clinical availability and consideration.

Subclinical infection of the intervertebral disc after lumbar disc herniation surgery has been correlated to chronic low back pain and vertebral endplate changes. The most commonly reported agent is Propionibacterium acnes. However, the real incidence is unclear, as it has been reported in some series ranging from 3.7% to 46%. Recently, a systematic review concluded that there is a relationship between P. acnes and endplate changes, but, there are so far no studies to verify whether the reported presence of that pathogen in the intervertebral discs is due to local infection or whether intraoperative contamination occurred during the collection of samples. Thus, the main objective of this study is to estimate the incidence of subclinical infection in patients surgically treated for lumbar disc herniation. To this end, a prospective cohort study will be conducted with a minimum of 95 patients between 18 and 65 years of age who have been submitted to surgery after failure of conservative treatment. The extruded disc will be removed and cultured for bacterial identification. As controls, the ligamentum flavum and the multifidus muscle, taken respectively before and after removal of the herniated fragment will also be cultured. Patients will be followed-up for a year and MRI will be done at the end of this period.

Environmental cleanliness As antimicrobial resistance is a major and overall deteriorating public health problem international cooperation is necessary. Continued progress is needed to implement and improve programmes for the prevention and control of antimicrobial resistance and HAIs. Environmental cleanliness might be one of the most important initiatives to reduce HAIs. Hospital surfaces are heavily contaminated with bacteria with the highest numbers on surfaces closest to the patients. Bed rails, nurse call buttons, curtains, towel dispensers, door handles, sinks, floors, clinical information stations, medical devices, stethoscopes, staff toilets etc. Actually, general hospital wards and Intensive Care Units are loaded with an abundance of potential pathogens 8,9,10. Surviving days, weeks or even months in the environment 11. Colonizing patients with bacteria from the hospital environment and getting HAIs or even die. As most ventilator-associated pneumonias (VAPs) are the result of nosocomial microorganisms the environment plays an important role in the acquisition of pathogenic bacteria by contaminating health care workers hands and equipment 12,13. Furthermore, ICUs and wards struggle with colonized patients with ESBL-bacteria from sinks eventually leading to dead or outbreaks of group A streptococcus infections from contaminated curtains 14,15. As key healthcare-associated pathogens have the capacity to persist for weeks to months on hospital surfaces indirect transmission is a serious threat, especially as antimicrobial resistance increases. Hospitalization in a room in which the previous patient had been colonized or infected with nosocomial pathogens (e.g. MRSA, VRE, multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter, Pseudomonas or C. difficile) has been shown to be a risk factor for colonization of infection with the same pathogen for the next patient16. Furthermore, the most important risk factor for hand and glove contamination of healthcare workers with multidrug-resistant bacteria has been demonstrated to be positive environmental cultures 17. To decrease the frequency and level of contamination of environmental surfaces the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention recommends routine disinfection of medical equipment and environmental surfaces to prevent the spread of potential pathogens through the hospital ward or ICU 18. Improved room cleaning has shown to decrease the risk for MRSA, VRE and C. difficile acquisition. Unfortunately, environmental cleaning is frequently inadequate. Less than 50% of hospital room surfaces are adequately cleaned and disinfected even by environmental services personnel. Environmental services personnel have low wages, are under time pressure to clean rooms quickly with high turn-over rates of patients. Novel materials and cleaning technologies have been developed as ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) or hydrogen peroxide vapor (HPV). However, both technologies are expensive and can just be used for terminal cleaning and not during routine daily care 16. Self-disinfecting surfaces may overcome these problems. Once applied antimicrobial surfaces will continuously reduce the bioburden of nosocomial pathogens preventing transmission and decrease HAIs. MVX One of these self-disinfecting products is MVX. MVX contains titanium dioxide which by the use of nanotechnology is now available for use in the health sector. Working as a photocatalyticum it generates, in the presence of light, hydroxy radicals and oxygen radicals for at least five years after coating hospital surfaces (durability test TUV Rheinland). Laboratory tests show that MVX is effective in killing bacteria, viruses and fungi (see attachment 1 for summary test results). The positive results reported on the effects of MVX from laboratory evaluations still have to be confirmed in the clinical setting. After getting the CE-marking Gelderse Vallei Hospital in Ede, the Netherlands, will be the first hospital in Europe to study the efficacy of MVX in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

The authors retrieved in-patient medical data, including the expense, from the 2010 Thailand Nationwide Hospital Admission Database, which is part of the National Health Security Office (NHSO). The diagnosis of digestive diseases with any form of colitis listed in the causes, either as principal diagnosis or co-morbidity, coding by the ICD-10 was recorded. The inclusion criteria were: 1) diagnosis of enterocolitis due to Clostridium difficile (ICD10-A07); and 2) age of more than 18 years. If the data was incomplete, the case was excluded. The baseline characteristics, including age, sex, co-morbidity disease and history of endoscopy or surgery, were recorded. The burden of CDI was evaluated by length of hospital stay (LOS), mortality rate, and hospital charge.

There is no difference between using chlorhexidine-based antisepsis protocol versus povidone-iodine protocol in reduction of surgical site infection in women undergoing cesarean section.

The purpose of this "before-after" prospective multicenter study is to assess the impact of six Patient Information Leaflets (PILs) on Doctor Patient Communication scale (DPC) and adherence scale for common acute illnesses in emergency ward.

The telavancin observational use registry (TOUR) will collect data to support study of the efficacy, safety, and pattern of use of telavancin in hospital-based inpatients and in outpatients being treated in infusion centers who are receiving clinician directed telavancin therapy.