PURPOSE To evaluate the conjunctival bacterial flora and its antibiotic resistance pattern in eyes of patients undergoing cataract surgery. METHODS From August to October 2004, 50 patients undergoing cataract surgery in the "Fundação Altino Ventura", Recife, Brazil, were prospectively evaluated. Conjunctival material was obtained on the day of surgery, before the application of topical anesth...

China is one of the countries with the highest burdens of multidrug-resistant (MDR) and fluoroquinolone (FQ)-resistant tuberculosis (TB) globally. Nevertheless, knowledge about the prevalence and molecular characterization of FQ-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates from this region remains scant. In this study, 138 M. tuberculosis isolates determined by the agar proportion susceptibili...

BACKGROUND Molecular resistance testing fails to explain all fluoroquinolone resistance, with a continued need for a suitable rapid phenotypic drug susceptibility testing method. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the optimal method for phenotypic fluoroquinolone susceptibility testing. METHODS Using Löwenstein-Jensen medium, Middlebrook 7H11 agar, BACTEC-MGIT 960 and the resazurin microtitre plate assa...

The use of fluoroquinolones has been linked to increasing bacterial resistance and infection and/or colonization with already resistant pathogens both as a risk factor and based on volume of use. Changes in individual fluoroquinolones used in an institution may also be related to these clinical problems. Interrupted time series analysis, which allows for assessment of the associations of an out...

UNLABELLED Ocular infections are common and vary from self-limiting to sight-threatening. All the structures of the eye can be infected by various microbes.The present study was undertaken to determine the prevalence of bacterial and fungal infections of the eye and also to assess the antibiotic susceptibility pattern of bacterial isolates at an eye care hospital in Bangalore, India. MATERIAL...

To compare mutations in the DNA gyrase (gyrA and gyrB) and topoisomerase IV (parC and parE) genes of Clostridium perfringens, which are associated with in vitro exposure to fluoroquinolones, resistant mutants were selected from eight strains by serial passage in the presence of increasing concentrations of norfloxacin, ciprofloxacin, gatifloxacin, or trovafloxacin. The nucleotide sequences of t...

A new, simple, rapid and sensitive batch chemiluminescence (CL) method for determination of six fluoroquinolones (ciprofloxacin, gatifloxacin, levofloxacin, lomefloxacin HCl, ofloxacin and sparfloxacin) is proposd. The method is based on the CL generated during the oxidation of luminol by N-bromosuccinimide (NBS) in alkaline medium. The determination of the studied drugs is based on their inhib...

Undifferentiated febrile illnesses (UFIs) are common in low- and middle-income countries. We prospectively investigated the causes of UFIs in 627 patients presenting to a tertiary referral hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal. Patients with microbiologically confirmed enteric fever (218 of 627; 34.8%) randomized to gatifloxacin or ofloxacin treatment were previously reported. We randomly selected 125 o...

Fluoroquinolone resistance affects toxin production of Clostridium perfringens strains differently. To investigate the effect of fluoroquinolone resistance selection on global changes in metabolic activities and drug susceptibilities, four C. perfringens strains and their norfloxacin-, ciprofloxacin-, and gatifloxacin-resistant mutants were compared in nearly 2000 assays, using phenotype microa...