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Sporothrix brasiliensis is considered a highly virulent emerging pathogen that causes sporotrichosis in humans, mainly after zoonotic transmission from infected cats. The epidemic of this zoonosis that originated from Brazil has spread in the last decades, generating hyperendemic regions in Latin America. We present two cases of human sporotrichosis causes by S. brasiliensis in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with good clinical response to differing treatments after contact with sick cats. Using Short tandem repeat (STR) genotyping, the two S. brasiliensis cases appear to be introduced from Brazil and likely originate from the same source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The aim of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of BNT162b2 vaccine (Pfizer®) among healthcare workers (HCWs) while a recrudescence of pandemics was hitting the Brescia county, with a high rate of the B.1.1.7 variant.Methods: The study was performed in the context of the mandatory health surveillance at the workplaces, in the period between 25th January 2021 and 26th March 2021, when 6904 HCWs (78% of workforce) gained full protection. HCWs were classified by having received the full vaccine schedule or not. The SARS-CoV-2 infection was diagnosed by conventional RT-PCR on rhino-pharyngeal swabs, followed by gene sequencing in positive vaccinated HCWs.Results: We observed 84 SARS-CoV-2 infections among HCWs, most among unvaccinated HCWs. Gene sequencing was successful in 5 cases only, 4 B.1.1.7 and 1 B1.525 variants. In the same period, Lombardy registered 192.829 confirmed COVID-19 cases, 40.029 of which in Brescia county. The incidence rate of the B.1.1.7 variant rose from 70% to 97%.Conclusions: Results confirm the protective effects of BNT162b2. The vaccine campaign was effective not only in reducing the appearance of symptoms but also in decreasing the incidence of infections among vaccinated HCWs. We observed a reduced infection rate also among the residual unvaccinated HCWs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Iberoamericana de Micologia is the property of Elsevier B.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Iberoamericana de Micologia is the property of Elsevier B.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Iberoamericana de Micologia is the property of Elsevier B.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Iberoamericana de Micologia is the property of Elsevier B.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Iberoamericana de Micologia is the property of Elsevier B.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Iberoamericana de Micologia is the property of Elsevier B.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Benzenic extracts from both stems and leaves of Heterophyllaea pustulata showed the most significant activity in vivo in the Brine Shrimp Lethally Test (BST), relative to others of different polarity. They were therefore selected for in vitro antimicrobial activity studies. Bacteriostatic activity against Micrococcus luteus ATCC 9341 was detected, selectively inhibiting both oxacillin-sensitive and-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, among several Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacterial species tested. Antifungal activity against important opportunist microorganisms and against those involved in superficial mycosis, all from nosocomial origin was also detected. A chemical screening revealed the presence of anthraquinones as major compounds. Among them, we identified damnacanthal, rubiadin, 2-hydroxy-3-methyl anthraquinone, soranjidiol, rubiadin-1-methyl ether, and damnacanthol in the benzenic stem extract. The benzenic leaf extract shows a similar chemical composition, except for damnacanthal, damnacanthol, soranjidiol-1-methyl ether, and 3 anthraquinones whose structures have not yet been elucidated. Acute toxicity studies revealed a low toxicity in mice for the anthraquinonic extracts, as measured in the LD50 value (123 mg/kg body wt. i.v.), and death was not observed at doses of up to 4000 mg/kg body wt. s.c. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction The Italian AD-NET project is a multicentric initiative focused on the early recognition of Alzheimer's Disease integrating clinical, imaging, and molecular data. This preliminary study reports test-retest reproducibility of hippocampus and its subfields segmentation, using the FreeSurfer 6.0 longitudinal processing with FLAIR alone and together with high-resolution T2. Materials and Methods Six clinical MRI sites across Italy currently participate in the project. The acquisition protocol included a 3D sagittal T1 both at the beginning and at the end of the scanning session, a 3D axial FLAIR and a high-resolution coronal T2. Each site recruited 5 healthy volunteers who were scanned in two different sessions a week apart. The preliminary results presented in this study are referred to 12 subjects. The images were processed according to the longitudinal stream of FreeSurfer 6.0. A within-session T1 averaging was performed to improve the reproducibility and FLAIR images were used in PIAL surface reconstruction. Then both standard hippocampal subfields segmentation (SHS) stream using the high-resolution T2 and longitudinal hippocampal subfields (LHS) stream were executed. The test-retest reproducibility error (RE) of the segmented volumes was calculated as the absolute volume differences across sessions relative to their mean. For each volume, the average RE value across subjects was calculated. Results The average RE related to the LHS stream (≈ 2%) is lower than using the SHS stream (≈ 3%). As shown in figure, the reproducibility with the LHS stream is higher for any volume except for the hippocampal fissure (Hp_ fiss). Irrespective of the stream used, the findings are generally better than those of other published studies, where no FLAIR and high-resolution T2 images were used. Conclusions Preliminary results of this study suggest high volume reproducibility for the different hippocampal subfields and the whole hippocampus. Moreover, the LHS stream showed a better reproducibility compared to the SHS stream. Acknowledgments This study was supported by the Italian Minister of Health, grant number: NET-2011-02346784. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Awareness of deficit in brain damaged patients is the capacity of a subject to recognize her/his cognitive and behavioral disturbances. Many terms have been used in the past to describe this deficit: lack of insight, anosognosia, reduced awareness of deficit. The term “insight” comes from the psychoanalytic literature and means a lack of introspective knowledge; instead the term “anosognosia” is typically used to describe the inability to recognize possible consequences of a specific neurological deficit (e.g. anosognosia for hemiplegia, for unilateral neglect or for fluent aphasia). Our approach is to adopt the generic term of awareness of deficit: a descriptive term without neuropsychological preconceptions. The reason to use this approach is, that after many studies on this topic, it is still not clear if unawareness is correlated with specific cognitive functions, with behavioral disturbances or with the severity of the dementia (). Aim of the study: The aim of this study is to analise unawareness with a global approach and to verify the following aspects: assess the prevalence of awareness, partial awareness and unawareness at the time of diagnosis and/or temporary admission in a specialized ward; evaluate the correlation between awareness and severity of cognitive impairment; evaluate the correlation between awareness of deficits and the neuropsychological functions (memory, language, executive functions). Subjects: Sixty-two patients with a diagnosis of mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease and their caregivers were included in the study (41 women and 21 men). The patients met the criteria of NINCDS-ADRDA for probable Alzheimer’s disease with a Mini Mental State Examination score >16/30; they had no history of brain injury, stroke or any other neurological or psychiatric illness; the subjects included in the study were either outpatient or patients admitted to our Centre. The patients and their caregivers signed a informed consent. Materials: The study protocol included: – Socio-cultural questionnaire, – questionnaire of identification of deficits (QID) (memory, language, instrumental activities, executive functions, emotion) modified by . The overall score ranges from 0 (no deficit) to 52 (maximum impairment). For each patient a QIDp (obtained directly from the patient) and a QIDc (filled in by the caregiver) was calculated. – CIR Clinical Insight Rating, – ADL Activity Daily Living, – IADL Instrumental Activities of Daily Living scale, – Neuropsychological battery was composed by global tests (Mini Mental State Examination, Clinical Dementia Rating) and Specific tests for episodic memory (short story), for language (Token Test, Test of verbal and semantic fluency), for executive functions (Trail Making Test and Frontal Assessment Battery) – NPI (Neuropsychiatric Inventory), – CBI (Caregiver Burden Inventory), – GDS (Geriatric Depression Scale). Results: The mean age of the patients was 79years (range 64–91, SD =6) and the mean MMSE score was 21 (range 15.4–27.9, SD =3.36). Thirty-four percentage of the patients were not aware, 35% of the patients were only partially aware and only in 18% of the subjects awareness seemed to be completely preserved. Global cognitive impairment was not related to awareness of deficits. There was a slight negative correlation between awareness of deficit and the results to the phonological fluency test (n =59, r =−0.24 p =0.06). No significant correlations were found with the other neuropsychological tests and the QID. Discussion and conclusions: Our study confirms the high prevalence of unawareness of deficits in a population with mild to moderate AD. No clear correlation was found between global cognitive level and awareness of deficit. No correlation was found between awareness of deficit and specific cognitive domains. Thus, in our sample, neither neuropsychological evaluation, nor the severity of dementia, seem to be related to unawareness of deficit. Our data are partially in contrast with previous studies showing a relationship of awareness with executive functions and memory () and of awareness and the severity of dementia. Neuropsychological evaluation and the severity of dementia, in our sample, donot explain unawareness of deficit. Our study points to the need to investigate each patients with specific tools, like QID and CIR, and to acquire an expert opinion. This approach is useful to reduce the bias related to the tools utilized and, at the same time, to limit the influence of the caregiver burden on the results. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]