bTo determine the long-term carriage patterns, strain relatedness, and incidence of subsequent infections among methicillinresistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and methicillin-susceptible S. aureus (MSSA) carriers, we screened 154 high school students for nasal carriage of S. aureus on 8 occasions over 11 months. Persistent carriage was defined as a positive culture on >7 occasions. Two consecutive isolates from the same subject comprised a pair, and strain relatedness was determined for each pair by molecular typing.

BackgroundReduced turnover of extracellular matrix has a role in renal fibrosis. Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) is associated with many glomerular diseases, but the histological association of MMPs and human renal fibrosis is unclear.MethodsThis is a retrospective study. Institutional Review Board approval was obtained for the review of patients’ medical records, data analysis and pathological specimens staining with waiver of informed consents. Specimens of forty-six patients were examined by immunohistochemical stain of MMP-9 in nephrectomized kidneys, and the association of renal expression of MMP-9 and renal fibrosis was determined. MMP-9 expression in individual renal components and fibrosis was graded as high or low based on MMP-9 staining and fibrotic scores.ResultsPatients with high interstitial fibrosis scores (IFS) and glomerular fibrosis scores (GFS) had significantly higher serum creatinine, lower estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), and were more likely to have chronic kidney disease (CKD) and urothelial cell carcinoma. Univariate analysis showed that IFS and GFS were negatively associated with normal and atrophic tubular cytoplasmic MMP-9 expression and IFS was positively correlated with atrophic tubular nuclear MMP-9 expression. Multivariate stepwise regression indicated that MMP-9 expression in atrophic tubular nuclei (r = 0.4, p = 0.002) was an independent predictor of IFS, and that MMP-9 expression in normal tubular cytoplasm (r = −0.465, p<0.001) was an independent predictor of GFS.ConclusionsInterstitial fibrosis correlated with MMP-9 expression in the atrophic tubular nuclei. Our results indicate that renal fibrosis is associated with a decline of MMP-9 expression in the cytoplasm of normal tubular cells and increased expression of MMP-9 in the nuclei of tubular atrophic renal tubules.

Iophendylate is an oil-based contrast agent used in conventional myelography before the 1980s. We report an unusual case of an 82-year-old woman with iophendylate migration into the intracranial cerebrospinal fluid space after myelography 40 years ago. The patient was treated conservatively and followed up regularly.

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