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Background: Tuberculous meningitis (TBM) is the most severe form of tuberculosis, but differentiating between the diagnosis of TBM and viral meningitis (VM) is difficult. Thus, we have developed machine-learning modules for differentiating TBM from VM. Material and Methods: For the training data, confirmed or probable TBM and confirmed VM cases were retrospectively collected from five teaching hospitals in Korea between January 2000 - July 2018. Various machine-learning algorithms were used for training. The machinelearning algorithms were tested by the leave-one-out cross-validation. Four residents and two infectious disease specialists were tested using the summarized medical information. Results: The training study comprised data from 60 patients with confirmed or probable TBM and 143 patients with confirmed VM. Older age, longer symptom duration before the visit, lower serum sodium, lower cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) glucose, higher CSF protein, and CSF adenosine deaminase were found in the TBM patients. Among the various machinelearning algorithms, the area under the curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristics of artificial neural network (ANN) with ImperativeImputer for matrix completion (0.85; 95% confidence interval 0.79 - 0.89) was found to be the highest. The AUC of the ANN model was statistically higher than those of all the residents (range 0.67 - 0.72, P <0.001) and an infectious disease specialist (AUC 0.76; P = 0.03). Conclusion: The machine-learning techniques may play a role in differentiating between TBM and VM. Specifically, the ANN model seems to have better diagnostic performance than the non-expert clinician. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

배경: Fascioliasis, a food-borne helminth, is primarily a disease of cattle and sheep that occasionally occurs in humans. The aquatic perennial herb water dropwort (Oenanthe javanica) has been identified as the primary source of human infection in Korea. Recently, a cluster of patients who had not ingested water-dropwort, but instead had the use of a green vegetable delivery service in common were diagnosed with fascioliasis. Our study aimed to identify the association between the green vegetable juice delivery service and the occurrence of human fascioliasis. 방법: Patients with liver abscesses and eosinophilia were enrolled in this study. They were categorized as fascioliasis or non-fascioliasis according to the serology, clinical manifestation, and computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging findings. Patients were classified as part of the fascioliasis group when ova or adult worms of the Fasciola species were detected or serology was positive with compatible clinical and radiological findings. 결과: We included 30 patients in this study; 15 were assigned to the fascioliasis group and the remaining 15 to the non-fascioliasis group. The proportion of patients who utilized the juice delivery service was significantly higher in the fascioliasis group than in the non-fascioliasis group (53.3% vs. 0%, P < 0.01). Most of the other patients in the fascioliasis group had known risk factors and intake of water dropwort or other raw vegetables. 결론: This study suggests that human fascioliasis could be transmitted by green vegetable juice produced and delivered by modern industrial systems. Further research on the product, industry, and the farm-level situation is required to validate these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

배경: Despite high vaccination coverage rate, in-hospital transmission of measles continued to occur in South Korea. We thus evaluated the seroprevalence of measles in healthcare workers (HCWs) in a university-affiliated hospital in South Korea. 방법: In 2018, after an outbreak of measles occurred in our hospital, all HCWs underwent measles IgG tests for point-prevalence surveillance. In addition, we have routinely performed measles IgG test for new HCWs since 2019. The measles vaccine is administered to HCWs who tested negative or equivocal for IgG antibodies. 결과: A total of 2310 HCWs underwent measles IgG tests. The average age at the time of test was 32.6 years, and 74.3 % were female. The overall seropositivity of measles was 88.9 % (95% confidence interval, 87.5 - 90.1). Among the 195 seronegative cases, 175 (89.3%) HCWs were born after 1985, although the birth cohorts between 1985 and 1994 were presumed to have received the measles-rubella (MR) catch-up vaccination in 2001. 결론: Knowing the prevalence of susceptibility to measles of newly employed HCWs is important for policy-making on hospital-wide vaccinations to prevent vaccine-preventable diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]