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Biomedical subjects

I Robson

Publications and source records attributed to I Robson.

6 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2002

Survival of enterococci during hospital laundry processing.

Much remains to be elucidated about the epidemiology of nosocomial enterococcal infections. Enterococci are, however, known to be relatively thermotolerant, and several studies have shown that under laboratory conditions many strains are able to survive the time/temperature combinations of the UK Department of Health recommendations for the decontamination of used linen (HSG(95)18). We therefore wished to investigate the efficacy of decontamination of enterococci from hospital linen in working hospital laundries. The thermotolerance of 40 strains of Enterococcus faecalis and Enterococcus faecium was first determined. Reduction by a factor of greater than 10(5) was achieved in only two of 40 strains after 3 min at 71 degrees C or 10 min at 65 degrees C, the time/temperature combinations specified by the Department of Health for the disinfection of used linen. During experimental challenge of 10 working hospital laundries, however, we demonstrated successful decontamination of laundry artificially contaminated with enterococci. This was shown to take place during the washing stage. Our study suggests that, despite the relative thermotolerance of enterococci, the time/temperature combinations specified in HSG(95)18 should be adequate for their decontamination in hospital laundries.

Decontamination↗
PubMed1999

Evaluation of tube coagulase and a fluorogenic substrate for rapid detection of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus from selective enrichment broth in an outbreak of EMRSA 15.

We investigated the use of tube coagulase and a fluorescent substrate, N-t-BOC-val-pro-arg-7-amido-4-methylcoumarin for the rapid detection of MRSA in selective broth enrichment cultures during an outbreak. These methods were compared with direct plating of swabs and plating a selective broth enrichment culture using 200 screening swabs collected from forty patients during the investigation of an outbreak of E-MRSA 15. Overall 66 swabs were positive for MRSA following subculture of broth enrichment culture. Direct plating detected 25 (38%) positives, tube coagulase 37 (56%), and fluorescent substrate 49 (74%) respectively, although nine of the 49 turned out to be false reactions. When detection from individual patients was analyzed, selective broth subculture identified 28 patients colonized with MRSA. Direct plating detected only 12 (43%) of these patients. The tube coagulase and fluorescence methods detected MRSA in 17 (60%) and 19 (68%) patients respectively. The tube coagulase method was found to be 100% specific for MRSA suggesting its use as a rapid method for the detection of MRSA from selective enrichment broth.

Bacteriological Techniques↗
PubMed1991

Sensory urgency: how full is your bladder?

OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether women with sensory urgency have an abnormal perception of bladder fullness. DESIGN: Prospective observational study. SETTING: Urodynamic Unit, St George's Hospital, London. SUBJECTS: 15 women with sensory urgency, 15 women with idiopathic detrusor instability and 15 without symptoms of frequency or urgency (control group). INTERVENTIONS: All the women attended for cystometry. Each was asked to complete a visual analogue score of how full she perceived her bladder to be on a scale from 1 to 10. This was done before filling cystometry and at three times during bladder filling. At each time actual filled volume was noted. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Maximum bladder capacity and individual perception of bladder fullness. RESULTS: Women with sensory urgency and detrusor instability had similar maximum bladder capacity although values in both groups were significantly lower than in the control group; thus percentage of maximum bladder capacity was used for analysis. Linear regression was performed for each group of patients and a predicted visual analogue score at 25, 50 and 75% of capacity calculated. These were compared between groups by rank analysis of variance. There was no significant difference between sensory urgency and detrusor instability. However, at 25, 50 and 75% of capacity, both groups had a significantly higher score than the control group. CONCLUSIONS: This abnormal perception would explain symptoms of frequency and urgency in these two groups. These results also confirm the similarity between detrusor instability and sensory urgency.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Efficient replication, integration, and packaging of retroviral vectors with modified long terminal repeats containing the packaging signal.

Retroviral vectors were modified to contain packaging (psi) signals of varying lengths (nucleotides 211-355, 211-565, or 211-1039 of MoMuLV RNA) between the U3-r and U5 sequences of their 5' long terminal repeat (LTR). For the vector MoTN-PR3, containing the full length 211-1039 nucleotide-long psi signal within the 5' LTR, replication, integration, and packaging were almost as efficient as for the original unmodified vector. This result confirmed that the 211-1039 nucleotide-long sequence from the MoMuLV RNA is sufficient and necessary to allow efficient packaging of RNAs. In addition, an important site was revealed where insertion of foreign DNA sequences of up to 829 nucleotides can be made within the 5' LTR, between U3-r and U5 sequences, without affecting viral replication, integration, or packaging.

Animals↗
PubMed1990

The Pyridium pad test for diagnosing urinary incontinence. A comparative study of asymptomatic and incontinent women.

Eighteen women with urodynamically proven genuine stress incontinence awaiting surgery and 23 normal, asymptomatic, continent female volunteers took part in a study to compare the accuracy of a qualitative pad test with a quantitative pad-weighing test in detecting urine loss. Each woman took 600 mg of phenazopyridine hydrochloride (Pyridium, Parke-Davis) in three equally divided doses over 18-24 hours and then underwent a standardized, one-hour pad test as described by the International Continence Society. The Pyridium pad test was regarded as positive if there was any orange staining on the pad. The quantitative pad-weighing test was considered positive if there was a weight gain of 1.0 g or more at the end of the one-hour test period. All 18 patients with genuine stress incontinence had positive Pyridium pad tests, and all had pad weight gains of greater than or equal to 1.0 g (mean, 16.5). The maximum pad weight gain in the asymptomatic, continent volunteers was 0.7 g (mean, 0.1), and none was aware of any urinary leakage during the test; however, 12 (52%) had positive Pyridium pad tests. The Pyridium pad test appears 100% sensitive in detecting urine loss in symptomatic women with genuine stress incontinence, but it has a high false-positive rate in healthy, asymptomatic, continent women. If pad-weighing tests are done, the addition of Pyridium generally will not be useful, and if Pyridium is used by itself, the results may be misleading.

Aminopyridines↗