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Background: To have country-wide information about multidrug resistance (MDR) in isolates from community-acquired urinary tract infections (CAUTI) of Turkey, in terms of resistance rates and useful options., Methods: We used a geocode standard, nomenclature of territorial units for statistics (NUTS), and a total of 1588 community-acquired isolates of 20 centres from 12 different NUTS regions between March 2019 and March 2020 were analysed., Results: Of the 1588 culture growths, 1269 (79. 9%) were Escherichia coli and 152 (9.6%) were Klebsiella spp. Male sex, advancedage, and having two or more risk factors showed a statistically significant relation with MDR existence (p < 0.001, p: 0.014, p < 0.001, respectively) that increasing number of risk factors or degree of advancing in age directly affects the number of antibiotic groups detected to have resistance by pathogens. In total, MDR isolates corresponded to 36.1% of our CAUTI samples; MDR existence was 35.7% in E. coli isolates and 57.2% in Klebsiella spp. isolates. Our results did not show an association between resistance or MDR occurrence rates and NUTS regions., Discussion: The necessity of urine culture in outpatient clinics should be taken into consideration, at least after evaluating risk factorsfor antibacterial resistance individually. Community-acquired UTIs should be followed up time- and region-dependently. Antibiotic stewardship programmes should be more widely and effectively administrated.

Background: The WHO emphasized the importance of knowing the risk factors for the severity of the disease in the COVID-19 pandemic. Our aim in this study was to determine the relationship between serum Butyrylcholinesterase (BChE) level, which is rapidly affected by inflammation, and the severity of COVID-19 pneumonia and mortality., Methods: Patients diagnosed with COVID-19 pneumonia between March and May 2021 were included in the study. The patients were divided into two groups as severe and mild to moderate pneumonia according to the WHO's guidelines. Serum BChE levels were studied by ELISA method from the blood samples taken from the patients on the day of hospitalization. The severity of the disease and other factors affecting hospital mortality were also evaluated., Results: 147 patients with COVID-19 pneumonia were included in this study. Of these patients, 58% had severe pneumonia and 42% had mild to moderate pneumonia. The BChE level was median 13 (IQR: 11.2-21.5)ng/ml in patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia and median 20 (IQR: 10-35.7)ng/ml in patients with mild to moderate pneumonia ( p : 0.001). Hospital with mortality rate was higher in patients with low BChE levels. However, statistically, BChE hasn't associated mortality in COVID-19 pneumonia [OR 1.002 (0.957-1.049) p: 0.490]. CRP, procalcitonin, lactate, and D-dimer levels were associated mortality in COVID-19 pneumonia., Conclusion: Being not statistically significant, the mortality rate was higher in patients with low BChE levels. BChE level is an important marker in determining the severity of COVID-19 pneumonia. Early prediction of the severity of COVID-19 pneumonia will enable early planning of the treatment process., (Copyright © 2022 Sipahioglu, Esmaoglu, Kiris, Dursun, Kuzuguden, Cavus and Artan.)

Aim: To investigate whether C-reactive protein/albumin ratio (CAR) has an association with new onset atrial fibrillation (NOAF) in SARS-CoV-2. Materials & methods: This study included 782 patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection, who were hospitalized in Turkey. The end point of the study was an occurrence of NOAF. Results: NOAF was identified in 41 patients (5.2%). Subjects who developed NOAF had a higher CAR compared with those who did not develop NOAF (p < 0.001). In the multivariate logistic regression analysis the CAR (odds ratio = 2.879; 95% CI: 1.063-7.793; p = 0.037) was an independent predictor of NOAF. Conclusion:  A high level of CAR in blood samples is associated with an increased risk of developing NOAF in SARS-CoV-2.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and associated with severe respiratory illness emerged in Wuhan, China, in late 2019. The virus has been able to spread promptly across all continents in the world. The current pandemic has posed a great threat to public health concern and safety. Currently, there are no specific treatments or licensed vaccines available for COVID-19. We isolated SARS-CoV-2 from the nasopharyngeal sample of a patient in Turkey with confirmed COVID-19. We determined that the Vero E6 and MA-104 cell lines are suitable for supporting SARS-CoV-2 that supports viral replication, development of cytopathic effect (CPE) and subsequent cell death. Phylogenetic analyses of the whole genome sequences showed that the hCoV-19/Turkey/ERAGEM-001/2020 strain clustered with the strains primarily from Australia, Canada, England, Iran and Kuwait and that the cases in the nearby clusters were reported to have travel history to Iran and to share the common unique nucleotide substitutions., Competing Interests: Gen Era Diagnostics Inc. provided support in the form of salaries for authors [CH and CC], but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Oral candidiasis is a common fungal infection, affecting the oral mucosa. The aim of this study was to investigate the epidemiology and antifungal susceptibility of Candida species isolated from the oral cavity of patients affected by oral candidiasis. Oral swabs were taken from 34 patients and were inoculated on to Sabouraud Dextrose Agar (SDA). The yeasts were preliminarily evaluated according to the growth (human serum) germ tube, chlamydospore formation, reproduction at 45 degrees C and colony characteristics on SDA medium. The commercial method Phoenix (Becton Dickinson, USA) was used for identification. Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) reference M27-A3 microdilution method was applied for fluconazole (FLC), voriconazole (VRC), amphotericin B (AMB), ketoconazole (KTC), nystatin (NYT) antifungal susceptibility testing. A total of 34 Candida species were isolated and these species were identified as follows: 14 (41.2%) Candida albicans, 8 (23.5%) Candida glabrata, 8 (23.5%) Candida parapsilosis, 4 (11.8 %) Candida tropicalis. The geometric mean (GM) of the Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) for FLC, NYT, VRC, AMB, and KTC was 13.09 μg/mL, 4.77 μg/mL, 0.23 μg/mL, 0.20 μg/mL, 0.08 μg/mL, respectively. The most commonly isolated species was C. albicans. KTZ showed the lowest MIC value. NYT MIC values for non-albicans species were higher than for C. albicans ones.

Malnutrition has been associated with increased morbidity and mortality. The objective of this study was to determine the nutritional status and micronutrient levels of hospitalized patients in an infectious disease clinic and investigate their association with adverse clinical outcomes. The nutritional status of the study participants was assessed using the Nutritional Risk Screening 2002 (NRS 2002) and micronutrient levels and routine biochemical parameters were tested within the first 24 h of the patient's admission. The incidence of zinc, selenium, thiamine, vitamin B6, vitamin B12 deficiency were 66.7% (n = 40), 46.6% (n = 29), 39.7% (n = 27), 35.3% (n = 24), 14.1% (n = 9), respectively. Selenium levels were significantly higher in patients with urinary tract infections, but lower in soft tissue infections. Copper levels were significantly higher in patients with soft tissue infections. In the Cox regression models, lower albumin, higher serum lactate dehydrogenase levels and higher NRS-2002 scores were associated with increased death. Thiamine, selenium, zinc and vitamin B6 deficiencies but not chromium deficiencies are common in infectious disease clinics. New associations were found between micronutrient levels and infection type and their adverse clinical outcomes. Hypoalbuminemia and a high NRS-2002 score had the greatest accuracy in predicting death, systemic inflammatory response syndrome and sepsis on admission.