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In recent years, an increase in the number of nosocomial infections due to yeasts has been observed. Although Candida is the genus most frequently isolated from these infections, other yeasts such as Blastoschizomyces, Geotrichum, Trichosporon, Rhodotorula and Pichia species are being found more frequently [1,2]. Species belonging to the genus Pichia, especially Pichia anomala, have rarely been involved in human infections [3,4], and Pichia ohmeri has been reported as a human pathogen in only three previous cases [5,6,7]. Here, we present the first case of urinary tract infection due to Pichia ohmeri, which occurred in a hematological patient.A 73-year-old man with a 5-year history of nonHodgkin's lymphoma being treated with chemotherapy and high-dose corticoids presented to our hospital with malaise, pain in the right iliac region radiating to the hipogastric region, and fever of 38.5°C. His medical history showed he had undergone a splenectomy and had received an indwelling catheter because of a thoracic vertebral fracture at the T11 level that occurred after medular infiltration. The patient's hemogram revealed 13,000 leukocytes/mm 3 with 67% neutrophils. The biochemical study only showed urea 88 mg/dl, and the coagulation study was normal. A dark and cloudy urine sample was collected from the catheter bag, and the urinary sediment showed 50-100 leukocytes/high power field (40×) and candiduria. Culture of a urine sample was performed, and >10 5 colony-forming units (cfu)/mm 3 of yeast were counted. A later culture resulted in isolation of the same yeast.The isolate was identified as Pichia ohmeri by the commercial identification system ID32-C (bioMérieux, France) according to the following morphological characteristics: colony morphotype on CHROMagar Candida medium (Beckton-Dickinson, France), blastesis, hyphae/

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Patients with alcoholic liver disease had a high prevalence of EPI and CP; this prevalence was even higher in patients who have not yet developed cirrhosis with liver failure or portal hypertension.

Amplification of hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA from blood detected occult HCV infections in 30.9% of 210 HCV-seronegative dialysis patients with abnormal liver enzyme levels that had evaded standard HCV testing practices. Isolated HCV core-specific antibody detection identified three additional anti-HCV screening-negative patients lacking HCV RNA amplification in blood who were considered potentially infectious. Together, these findings may affect management of the dialysis setting. Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is prevalent among patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) who are undergoing maintenance dialysis, and it has detrimental effects on disease progression and patient survival times, although HCV-related liver disease is mostly mild and asymptomatic (1-3). Accurate HCV diagnosis is limited by the lack of detectable anti-HCV antibodies in some viremic patients (4). Also, HCV RNA has been detected in blood cells from HCV-seronegative (negative for anti-HCV and serum HCV RNA) hemodialysis (HD) patients with abnormal alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and/or gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase (GGTP) values (i.e., occult HCV infection) (5). Such patients can be infectious and contribute to HCV spread within dialysis units but remain undiagnosed with standard diagnostic techniques (6). This study aimed to identify occult HCV infections among HCV-seronegative dialysis patients with abnormal liver enzyme levels that had evaded standard HCV testing practices.(This work was presented in part as a poster at the 64th Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, Washington, DC, 1 to 5 November 2013 [7].) Fifteen Spanish dialysis units enrolled patients for substitutive hemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis (PD) therapy. The inclusion criteria were (i) ALT levels above 28 IU/liter (8) and/or abnormal GGTP levels (Ͼ43 IU/liter) for more than 6 months before study entry; . Anti-HCV antibodies (Innotest HCV Ab IV; Innogenetics, Ghent, Belgium) and HCV RNA were retested centrally at a single center, which confirmed that 210 subjects (134 male and 76 female subjects; median age, 69 years [range, 25 to 87 years]) fulfilled the inclusion criteria. The median duration of dialysis was 36 months (range, 6 to 264 months); the median ALT and GGTP levels prior to study entry were 26 IU/liter (range, 5 to 180 IU/liter) and 69 IU/liter (range, 10 to 160 IU/ liter), respectively. The etiology of kidney disease was diabetes mellitus in 40 cases (19.1%), glomerulonephritis in 27 (12.9%), high blood pressure in 21 (10.0%), interstitial nephropathy in 16 (7.6%), and polycystic kidney in 11 (5.2%), whereas 95 patients (45.2%) suffered from other nephropathies. This study was approved by the coordinating center's ethics committee and was conducted according to the Helsinki Declaration; written consent was obtained from all patients. Serum and peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) samples were collected at study entry. The HCV RNA 5= noncoding region in total RNA extracted from PBMCs and ultracentrifuged serum (...