Delay in initiating appropriate antibiotic treatment in patients with severe nosocomial pneumonia (SNP) is associated with a more unfavorable prognosis,1-6 longer hospital stays, and consequently higher healthcare costs. Moreover, in the context of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), changing inappropriate empiric antibiotic regimens after the causative pathogen has been isolated does not si...

Liu and colleagues, in their recent meta-analysis, concluded that probiotics were associated with a statistically significant reduction in the incidence of nosocomial pneumonia (NP) (odds ratio = 0.75; 95% confidence interval = 0.57 to 0.97, P = 0.03) [1]. These results were obtained using the fixed-effect model, ignoring a moderate level of heterogeneity (I = 46%) [2]. However, we believe that...

This study evaluated the role of periodontal pathogens in 50 hospitalized patients with hospital acquired pneumonia compared with 30 healthy controls. Specimens of oropharyngeal aspirate, dental plaque bronchoalveolar lavage and blood cultured 1 or more pathogens in around 80% of patients, predominatel Staphylococcus aureus, followed by coagulase-negative staphylococci, Streptococcus pneumonia...

Background: Cefepime was used as empirical treatment in ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) induced by gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria. This study aimed to determine the antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of cefepime against microorganism causing VAP in Mazandaran, North of Iran. Methods: This study was performed on VAP patients diagnosed with clinical pulmonary infection score (CP...

BACKGROUND Initial antimicrobial therapy (AB) is an important determinant of clinical outcome in patients with severe infections as pneumonia, however well-conducted studies regarding prognostic impact of inadequate initial AB in patients who are not undergoing mechanical ventilation (MV) are lacking. In this study we aimed to identify the risk factors for inadequate initial AB and to determine...

Cefotaxime has retained its broad-spectrum activity against the key pathogens in surgical infection, despite 15 years of widespread use. It has good activity against a wide range of Gram-positive and Gram-negative aerobes and most anaerobes, except Bacteroides fragilis but, combined with metronidazole, it offers clinically complete coverage of B. fragilis and Escherichia coli, the two most impo...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Increased sympathetic drive after stroke is involved in the pathophysiology of several complications including poststroke immunudepression. β-Blocker (BB) therapy has been suggested to have neuroprotective properties and to decrease infectious complications after stroke. We aimed to examine the effects of random pre- and on-stroke BB exposure on mortality, functional outc...