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P Barrufet

Publications and source records attributed to P Barrufet.

13 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Sporadic and epidemic community legionellosis: two faces of the same illness.

The present study compares the risk factors, presentation and outcome of community-acquired Legionella pneumophila pneumonia in 138 sporadic-case patients (1994-2004) and 113 outbreak-case patients (2002) treated in two hospitals in Catalonia (Spain) since urinary antigen assays were adopted. Univariate and multivariate analysis were performed to compare epidemiological and clinical features, blood chemistry values, radiological findings and outcome of sporadic and epidemic legionnaires' disease. Univariate analysis showed that male sex, chronic lung disease, HIV infection and immunosuppressive therapy prevailed in sporadic cases. Presentation with respiratory symptoms, confusion and blood chemistry alterations, such as hyponatraemia, aspartate aminotransferase and blood urea nitrogen elevation, and partial pressure of oxygen P(O)(2) <7.98 KPa (60 mmHg) were also more frequent in sporadic cases, while headache prevailed in outbreak cases. Sporadic cases had a greater delay in treatment, were more severe and had a worse outcome than epidemic cases. Multivariate analysis showed significant differences in sex, chronic lung disease, HIV infection and headache. The clinical and outcome differences between the two groups may be explained by the detection of milder forms of legionnaires' disease, the earlier treatment and the lower severity of underlying disease in the outbreak cases.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

A multi-agent system approach for monitoring the prescription of restricted use antibiotics.

Hospitals have a specified set of antibiotics for restricted use (ARU), very expensive, which are only recommended for special pathologies. The pharmacy department daily checks the prescription of this kind of antibiotics since it is often the case that, after a careful analysis, one can get the same therapeutic effects by using normal antibiotics which are much cheaper and usually less aggressive. In this paper, we describe a multi-agent system to help in the revision of medical prescriptions containing antibiotics of restricted use. The proposed approach attaches an agent to each patient which is responsible of checking different medical aspects related to his/her prescribed therapy. A pharmacy agent is responsible for analyzing it and suggesting alternative antibiotic treatments. All these agents are integrated in a hospital distributed scenario composed by many different kinds of software and human agents. This patient-centered multi-agent scenario is specified using the design methodology of Electronic Institutions.

Anti-Bacterial Agents↗
PubMed1992

[Cerebral amyloid angiopathy and recurrent cerebral hematoma. Clinicopathological study of a case].

Cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA) is an almost constant finding in Alzheimer's disease and in Alzheimer type senile dementia (EA/DSTA) but it has also been described in association with other processes such as in age-related hereditary or non hereditary cerebral hemorrhage (CH) relapse. The case of a non hypertensive 78 year old women is presented. Over a period of 27 months the patient had 3 cerebral hemorrhages located in the left parietotemporal, caudate nucleus and right frontobasal and right parietotemporal lobes, all of which had cortico-subcortical topography and eruption of blood to the subarachnoid space. The fundamental finding in the neuropathological study was the CAA with massive involvement in the leptomeninges and cortex, less in cerebellum and nucleus of the base, occasional in white matter and absent in the brain stem trunk. Abundant senile plaques and figures of neurofibrillar degeneration were found. Granulovacuolar degeneration or Hyrano bodies were not observed. At the level of the main intracraneal arterial trunks only a small plaque of atheroma was observed in the left vertebral artery. The association of CAA and CH in the literature and their relation with EA/DSTA are revised.

Aged↗
PubMed1991

[Acute pyelonephritis. Prospective analysis of 91 cases].

Ninety nine patients suffering of acute pyelonephritis are prospectively analyzed. Mean age was 39.8 +/- 18.2 (mean +/- DE), 72 of them were females and 19 were males. The most frequent clinical manifestations were fever and side pain in 97% of the cases and lower urinary syndrome in 78%. The duration of symptoms previous to the visit was 3.5 +/- 2.9 days. Bacteremia was confirmed in 99% of cases, it affected the oldest patients (p less than 0.001) and provoked the lasting of fever (p less than 0.05). E. coli was the most frequently isolated microorganism with an incidence of 91% in the isolated samples. Gentamicin was the initial treatment and the definitive treatment was prolonged to a total of 14 days. Fifteen percent of patients were classified after the evaluation as carriers of complicated pyelonephritis and had to undergo afterwards a urologic treatment. Follow up over a minimum of 6 weeks showed a treatment failure in 2% of cases and recurrency in 22%.

Acute Disease↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Health-related quality of life in HIV-infected naive patients treated with nelfinavir or nevirapine associated with ZDV/3TC (the COMBINE-QoL substudy).

PURPOSE: The aim of the study was to assess differences in health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in HIV-infected naive patients treated with two HAART regimens at 12 months. METHOD: The MOS-HIV questionnaire was used to measure HRQoL in a subgroup of 127 patients included in the COMBINE study, which was an open-label, randomized, multicenter study comparing zidovudine (ZDV) and lamivudine (3TC) plus nelfinavir (NFV) or nevirapine (NVP) regimens in HIV-infected naive patients. 63 patients were included in the ZDV/3TC/NFV arm and 64 in the ZDV/3TC/NVP arm. RESULTS: No statistically significant differences were observed at baseline in demographic and clinical variables and HRQoL scores between treatment groups, except that the proportion of homosexual men was higher in the ZDV/3TC/NVP arm. There were no statistically significant differences in HRQoL scores between arms at 12 months and over time; only ZDV/3TC/NVP patients showed statistically significant improvement in Physical Health Summary score (p <.01) and a trend toward a better profile in Mental Health Summary score (p =.07). Overall, patients who were treated with ZDV/3TC/NVP showed greater changes in physical dimensions and patients who were treated with ZDV/3TC/NFV showed greater changes in mental health. CONCLUSION: Differences in HRQoL between study groups at 1 year follow-up were not detected. Nevertheless, a trend toward improvement was observed in summary health scores in ZDV/3TC/NVP-treated patients.

Adult↗