The ALNN Steering Group received funding support from the Wai Hung Charitable Foundation, Mr G. King, the Estate of the late Mr Rapamycin Chan Wing Hei, Astellas Pharma Co. Hong Kong Ltd., Roche Hong Kong Ltd., and the Endowment Fund established for the ‘Yu Chiu Kwong Professorship in Medicine’ at The University of Hong Kong awarded to T. M. Chan. These donations are in the form of ‘unrestricted’ grants and have no influence
on the academic activities that they have lent support to. “
“Goulburn, NSW, Australia Infections of the lower urinary tract and Acute Pyelonephritis are commonly encountered in clinical practice. Widespread usage of antibiotics and changing susceptibility profiles of uropathogens requires regular review of treatment guidelines to meet these challenges. We aimed to better understand the prevalence of uropathogens and emerging antibiotic resistance in patients with pyelonephritis requiring hospital admission. In this single centre, 12-year retrospective observational study, we reviewed case notes and urine culture results of 249 patients admitted with learn more Acute Pyelonephritis under the care of the Nephrology Department, along with 46 660 urine samples
with positive isolates from the Emergency Department (ED) during the same period. The prevalence of uropathogens, their antibiotic susceptibilities and emerging resistance patterns to commonly used antibiotics were studied. Antibiotic susceptibilities were also reviewed in line with the currently recommended national guidelines for empiric therapy. We found the most prevalent uropathogen to be Escherichia coli. Approximately 50% of E. coli infections were resistant to ampicillin. First and third generation cephalosporin resistance was <5%, however, the latter has increased over the last decade and is more prevalent in the elderly. Enterococcus faecalis was associated with less than 10% of cases
of lower urinary tract infections and no case of pyelonephritis. Antibiotic resistance of uropathogens CYTH4 to commonly used antibiotics is increasing with time and there is a need for hospitals to review their recommended guidelines for empiric therapy in line with local patterns of uropathogens and antibiotic susceptibilities. “
“Neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL), a small 25 kDa protein strongly induced in injured renal tubular cells, represents an interesting emerging biomarker in the field of clinical nephrology. The aim of the present pilot study was to analyze circulating NGAL levels in a small cohort of 30 patients on chronic haemodialysis (HD), in order to assess any relationships with different laboratory and clinical parameters. Pre- and post-HD levels were higher in patients than in healthy subjects (485.2 ± 49.7 vs 51.2 ± 4.6 ng/mL; P < 0.001; and 167.4 ± 48.0 vs 51.2 ± 4.6 ng/mL; P = 0.01).