INTRODUCTION — Prior to the development of modern cardiovascular surgery, most cases of mediastinitis arose from either esophageal perforation or from contiguous spread of odontogenic or retropharyngeal infections. Rarely, primary infections of the mediastinum developed as a result of penetrating trauma or hematogenous spread of infection. However, in modern practice, most cases of mediastiniti...

Background and Objectives: Cardiovascular disease is the most common cause of death in developed countries. In addition to traditional risk factors for cardiovascular disease, nowadays, accumulating evidence indicates that a variety of infections contribute to pathogenesis of atherosclerosis, (We investigated whether Helicobacter pylori infection is related to Prpevalence of coronary heart dise...

OBJECTIVES To describe the epidemiology of nosocomial infections in pediatric intensive care units (ICUs) in the United States. BACKGROUND Patient and ICU characteristics in pediatric ICUs suggest the pattern of nosocomial infections experienced may differ from that seen in adult ICUs. METHODS Data were collected between January 1992 and December 1997 from 61 pediatric ICUs in the United St...

AIM (i) To discuss the possibility that dental infections in general, and endodontic infections (apical periodontitis) more specifically, may affect cardiovascular health, (ii) which preventive measures should be adopted during the treatment of endodontic infections for infective endocarditis (IE), and (iii) What should be the priorities for future research, in the light of the literature avail...

Beside the well-established impact on decreasing the risk of cardiovascular diseases (1), recent attention has been paid to the relationship between cocoa-containing foods and the immune system (2), showing that dark chocolate consumption enhances the systemic defense against bacterial (3) and viral (4) infections. Hence, the current study aimed at investigating the acute effect of dark chocola...