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S Mata-Essayag

Publications and source records attributed to S Mata-Essayag.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

Well diffusion for antifungal susceptibility testing.

INTRODUCTION: The increasing clinical and microbiologic resistance of Candida spp. isolates to several antifungal agents is becoming a serious problem. It is now reasonable to propose the use of antifungal susceptibility testing in Candida spp. isolates from patients who have failed conventional therapy, before the selection of an empirical therapy. METHODS: One hundred and fifty eight isolates of Candida spp. were evaluated simultaneously by broth microdilution (NCCLS standard) and well diffusion testing (WD), a diffusion method similar to disc diffusion. RESULTS: According to the Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test performed, there was no significant difference (p>0.05) between both methodologies for all antifungal agents tested (fluconazole, itraconazole, posaconazole, caspofungin and amphotericin B, with C. tropicalis, C. krusei, C. dubliniensis, C. guillermondii, C. parapsilosis, C. albicans and C. glabrata). A significant difference was observed when comparing well diffusion with NCCLS for fluconazole WD 80% (p=0.008) in C. glabrata, as well as WD 80% (p=0.002) and WD 50% (p=0.002) in C. albicans. CONCLUSIONS: The well diffusion test is simple, easy to reproduce, inexpensive, easy both to read and interpret, and has a good correlation to the reference NCCLS microdilution test and may represent an alternative method for antifungal drug susceptibility testing of Candida spp., mainly in laboratories with few resources.

Antifungal Agents↗

"In vitro" antifungal activity of protease inhibitors.

In the last five years, as HAART has become standard therapy in HIV seropositive or AIDS patients, changes have been noted in the numbers and types of opportunistic fungal infections in these cohorts of patients. Particularly, oropharyngeal candidiasis have become rare in HIV infected patients since the introduction of new anti-HIV drugs of the protease inhibitors type. At the Immunology Institute of the Universidad Central de Venezuela the most frequent protease inhibitors (PIs) used for the treatment of these patients have been: Nelfinavir (Viracept, Roche), Indinavir (Crixivan Merck), Ritonavir (Norvir, Abbott), Saquinavir (Fortovase, Roche). Recently, we observed that recurrent candidiasis was less frequent and no Candida could be isolated in our patients. A direct relation to the PIs was suspected. In order to assess the "in vitro" antifungal activity of the afore mentioned protease inhibitors on Candida sp., we used both the well diffusion test and the NCCLS broth microdilution test to assay 100 Candida sp. isolates from HIV seropositive or AIDS patients with syntomatic oropharyngeal Candida infection. In general, the data obtained with the well diffusion test were in agreement with those obtained by the broth microdilution test. All 100 isolates were susceptible to Saquinavir and 32 were susceptible to Indinavir using the NCCLS microdilution test, while 97 were susceptible to Saquinavir and 52 to Indinavir by the well diffusion test. From 17 C. albicans resistant to fluconazole, all were susceptible to Saquinavir by the NCCLS micromethod and 16 by the well diffusion test. Our results showed anticandidal activity "in vitro" of PIs, mainly Saquinavir.

AIDS-Related Opportunistic Infections↗

Erysipelas and tinea pedis.

During a 2-year period 30 adults were selected out of a group of patients diagnosed with erysipelas, who, except for tinea pedis, were apparently otherwise healthy patients. Clinical and epidemiological studies were performed to establish how tinea pedis and erysipelas are related. Thirteen of 30 patients with a diagnosis of erysipelas were found to have tinea pedis due to Trichophyton mentagrophytes and Trichophyton rubrum. In seven of the patients (23%) tinea pedis was found to be the unique predisposing factor for erysipelas. Tinea pedis may be a risk factor for streptococcal infections such as erysipelas, mainly in tropical countries, where tinea pedis is a frequent disease.

Erysipelas↗