No abstract

Moxifloxacin is a new fluoroquinolone antimicrobial approved for the treatment of acute bacterial rhinosinusitis. In order to assess its distribution pattern into the paranasal sinuses, and specifically to evaluate how the histopathologic changes associated with chronic inflammation affect its tissue penetration, we conducted the present investigation, a randomized, open-label, single dose, sinus-tissue pharmacokinetic study with oral moxifloxacin. Twenty adult subjects, selected for surgery because of recalcitrant chronic rhinosinusitis, were preoperatively randomly allocated to receive a tablet of 400 mg moxifloxacin 3 or 4 hours before the procedure. During the operation, tissue samples were collected at specific sinonasal sites, and the concentration levels of the antimicrobial in the different parts of the paranasal sinuses were assayed. Simultaneously, the degree of inflammation at each site was evaluated. We found that moxifloxacin was distributed extensively throughout the sinuses, in both inflamed and noninflamed mucosae, but tended to be concentrated in maxillary sinus cysts. The tissue-to-blood ratios exceeded 4:1 at most sites, with mucosal concentration levels well above the MIC90 values of the drug against a wide range of microorganisms. We concluded that the oral moxifloxacin tissue kinetics provides an extremely potent antimicrobial activity in all parts of the sinuses, regardless of the inflammatory status of the mucosa.

Cefuroxime penetrates adequately and uniformly into chronically inflamed sinus mucosa, apparently unaffected by the degree of inflammation, in a way not dissimilar to its pharmacokinetic behavior in the normal state. Persistent MIC levels for common pathogens still warrant antimicrobial efficacy for a significant period of time after dosing.

What has always been considered indivisible, the individual, is, above all, fragmented. That fragmentation is celebrated through the figure of the vampire in the literary narratives of the XIX and XX centuries, hence the multiple identities of that tormented shadow. This tormented manner of being is the foundation of the permanent state of war typical of the constant tension between the way a person is and the way he/she would wish to be. The figure of the vampire subverts what Michel Maffesoli calls "the phantom of the self", common in the Western tradition. To the French philosopher the dogmatic reason not only can but also needs to impose a unity. Feelings and affections, in their turn, drive us into a turbulence, a discomfort of multiplicity. Thus, the genealogy of the rebelious spirit presents us with a revolt against the conceptions of the individual as static. It is exactly the fact of being multiple in himself/herself that brings the individual to the lack of recognition of himself/herself in the social rigidity. Establishing a dialogue with Maffesoli's theory, I shall analyse Bram Stoker's novel Dracula (1887) and Heloísa Seixas' short story "Íblis" (1995). These narratives converge as they both reveal the sombre side of our nature which, according to Maffesoli, though it can be domesticated by culture, it continues to enliven our desires, our fears, our feelings. Freud, Kristeva, Beauvoir and Foucault will help in the development of the ideas of the uncanny, abjection, identity, and sexuality.

Focado no romance produzido no âmbito das literaturas de língua inglesa, o texto parte de um recorte temático que colocará em relevo as figurações narrativas da vida conjugal. Trata-se pois de explorar o casamento num sentido duplo: o “casamento” (perfeito) entre a forma do romance e a encenação ficcional de amores; e o casamento enquanto tema de romances. Privilegiando-se o subtema do adultério de personagens femininas, a análise incide em momentos especialmente intensos das tramas romanescas (“cenas”, nos quais o desejo eclode em forma textual até certo ponto destacável do conjunto narrativo em que se insere). Como ilustração da teoria, propõe-se uma leitura do romance The End of the Affair (1951), de Graham Greene.