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To investigate the prevalence of cervical human papilloma virus (HPV) with genotyping and simultaneous cervical cytology among Turkish women in a university hospital. A review of literature was done as well to summarize the results of similar Turkish studies based on hospital data.Women who were subjected to cervical HPV-DNA testing with simultaneous cervical Pap test were included. Seeplex HPV 18-plex Genotyping Test was used for HPV detection and typing. Liquid-based cytology was used for Pap test and Bethesda system was used for results.Study group included 890 patients with a mean age of 39.5 years. The prevalence of any HPV was 25.7% while high-risk HPV was positive in 23.0%. There were no significant differences in HPV prevalence between younger and older women. Among HPV-positive women, 89.5% had at least one type of high-risk HPV. Most common HPV was type 16 followed by type 31 and 51. Abnormal cervical cytology rate was 11.6%. Rate of HPV positivity was significantly higher in women with abnormal cervical cytology compared to women with normal cytology (54.4 vs. 22.0%).Cervical HPV infection is a serious and gradually growing problem for Turkish women according to hospital-based data. This may be associated with low age at marriage and more sensitive HPV detection methods.

Objective The objective of this study is to investigate the presence of viral DNAs of HSV-1, HSV-2, HHV-6, HHV-8, and CMV in hippocampus of the patients with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) syndrome. Methods Pathological specimens were obtained from 33 patients with MTLE undergone temporal lobectomy with amygdalo-hippocampectomy due to intractable seizures. Autopsy materials from the hippocampus of 7 patients without neurological disease were used as controls. The data was also correlated with the clinical history of patients including febrile convulsions, age, and history of CNS infections. Real-time polymerase chain reaction method was performed for detection of DNAs of these viruses. Results HHV-6, HSV-1 and HHV-8 were detected in the hippocampus of 3, 2 and 1 patients with MTLE respectively. None of the hippocampus of patients with MTLE was positive for DNA of HSV-2 and/or CMV. Three patients with positive HHV-6 DNAs had febrile convulsions and family history for epilepsy. None of our control specimens showed PCR positivity to any of the 5 tested viruses. Conclusions Our study is the first to report the presence of HHV-8 viral genome in the brain tissue of patient with MTLE. Viral DNAs were detected in a total of 18% of the patients in this study; we can conclude that activity of the latent virus in patients with hippocampal sclerosis should be more extensively studied to establish its role in active infection.

This study investigated the prevalence of the erm(A), erm(B) and erm(C) genes among 122 MLS-resistant clinical isolates of Staphylococcus aureus from a Turkish university hospital. Of these isolates, 44 were inducibly resistant and 78 were constitutively resistant. The presence of one or more erm genes was demonstrated in 114 isolates; the erm(C) gene was detected in 97 isolates, and the erm(A) gene was detected in 96 isolates. Seventy-eight isolates harboured both erm(A) and erm(C). The combination of erm(A), erm(B) and erm(C) genes was detected in only one isolate.

Penicillin-resistant Streptococcus pneumoniae isolates (n = 76) from clinical samples of patients admitted to Hacettepe University Hospital between January 1997 and December 2001 were included in the study. MICs of penicillin G, erythromycin A, clindamycin, cefaclor, cefotaxime, vancomycin, chloramphenicol, tetracycline, ciprofloxacin and rifampicin were determined by agar dilution. The isolates were serogrouped on the basis of the Neufeld Quellung reaction and were typed by BOX-PCR. Genetic polymorphismof the penicillin resistance genes pbp2b and pbp2x was investigated by restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) analysis. Of the 76 isolates tested, 64 (84.2%) showed intermediate resistance to penicillin, while 12 (15.8%) were resistant to higher levels of penicillin (MIC ≥ 2 mg/L). The resistance patterns of the isolates revealed six different resistance profiles. There were 22 different serotypes, with c. 55% of the isolates belonging to serotypes 23B, 19A, 19F, 14, 6 A and 9V. Five distinct patterns for pbp2b and 12 distinct patterns for pbp2x were obtained by RFLP analysis of penicillin-binding protein genes. The combination of these patterns allowed isolates to be classified into 22 fingerprint subgroups. BOX-PCR analysis showed that the isolates fell into 14 distinct BOX genotypes, with 33 subtypes. Serotype 9V isolates with pbp genotype 2–6 and BOX-PCR type 4, 4.1 or 4.2 were related to the pandemic clone Spain9V–3. No relatedness to other international clones was detected among the other study strains, but genetic relatedness was observed among some of the serotype 19A and 23B isolates. Overall, the results demonstrated that most of the penicillin-resistant pneumococcal isolates in Turkey, other than those belonging to serotypes 9V, 19A and 23B, were derived from several independent clones, possibly resulting from multiple importation of strains originating from outside the country. Differences in pbp patterns, serotypes and resistance profiles among isolates that showed similar BOX-PCR patterns supported the hypothesis that horizontal transfer of capsular genes, pbp genes and other genetic determinants between S. pneumoniae and viridans group streptococci may have occurred.

Sandfly fever viruses (SFVs) cause febrile diseases as well as aseptic meningitis/encephalitis and include serotypes sandfly fever Sicilian virus (SFSV), sandfly fever Naples virus (SFNV) and Toscana virus (TOSV). Infections are endemic in the Mediterranean basin and data on SFV activity in Turkey are limited. In this study, sera from 1533 blood donors from the Ankara, Konya, Eskisehir and Zonguldak provinces of Turkey were evaluated for SFV exposure by indirect immunofluorescence test (IIFT) and confirmed by virus neutralization test (VNT). One hundred and two patients with central nervous system (CNS) infections of unknown aetiology were also tested via IIFT and real-time reverse-transcription PCR for SFV/TOSV. Rate of overall IgG reactivity in IIFT was 32.9% (505/1533) among blood donors. TOSV exposure was confirmed by VNT in all study regions. Exposure to the recently-identified serotype sandfly fever Turkish virus, as evaluated by VNT, was revealed in Konya and Ankara. SFNV exposure was identified in Konya and SFSV was observed to be present in all regions except Zonguldak. TOSV RNA was detected in 15.7% (16/102) and was accompanied by TOSV IgM in 25% (4/16) of the patients. Partial L and S sequences suggested that TOSV circulating in Turkey can be grouped into TOSV genotype A strains. Exposure to TOSV and other SFV serotypes was revealed in blood donors and CNS infections by TOSV were identified for the first time in Turkey. Infections are observed to be endemic in central Anatolia and should be considered as aetiologic agents in cases/outbreaks of fever and meningoencephalitis. peerReviewed