Background: Clinical course of Clinically Isolated Syndrome (CIS) is variable, and identifying patients who will eventually develop Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is essential. Objectives: To assess the conversion rate of CIS to Clinically Definite Multiple Sclerosis (CDMS) and its predictors in southern Iran. Materials & Methods: A total of 143 CIS patients registered to Fars Multiple Sclerosis Soc...

overlap syndrome, which is known as the coexistence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (copd) and obstructive sleep apnea (osa), was first defined by flenley. although it can refer to concomitant occurrence of any of the pulmonary diseases and osa, overlap syndrome is commonly considered as the coexistence of osa and copd. this disease has unique adverse health consequences distinct from ...

Over a period of 26 months, we have evaluated in a prospective fashion the use of 16S rRNA gene sequencing as a means of identifying clinically relevant isolates of nonfermenting gram-negative bacilli (non-Pseudomonas aeruginosa) in the microbiology laboratory. The study was designed to compare phenotypic with molecular identification. Results of molecular analyses were compared with two commer...

The in vitro activity of the novel triazole antifungal agent posaconazole (Noxafil; SCH 56592) was assessed in 45 laboratories against approximately 19,000 clinically important strains of yeasts and molds. The activity of posaconazole was compared with those of itraconazole, fluconazole, voriconazole, and amphotericin B against subsets of the isolates. Strains were tested utilizing Clinical and...

BACKGROUND Tuberculosis and other mycobacterial infections are well recognised complications of HIV infection and surveillance is thus required. METHODS All mycobacteria isolated from HIV positive subjects and referred to the Public Health Laboratory Service South East Regional Tuberculosis Centre (SERTC) from the first such case in 1984 until the end of 1992 were reviewed. RESULTS A total ...

SETTING Over 150 potentially pathogenic non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) species have been described, posing an onerous challenge for clinical laboratory diagnosis. OBJECTIVE To evaluate different approaches for the identification of 40 clinically relevant NTM isolates whose species were not reliably identified using our routine diagnostic workflow comprising phenotypic tests and hsp65 poly...

The aim of this study was to isolate and identify airborne fungi from locations in Babol city, Babolkenar forest and a beach on the Caspian Sea (all in North part of Iran) in spring and summer. Of 126 samples collected, the most clinically important isolated fungi were Mucor spp. (18.6%) in the forest, Alternaria spp. (13.4%) at the beach; and Cladophialophora spp. (15.8%), Mucor spp. (11.7%) a...