background community acquired pneumonia (cap) is a common health concern and the main mortality factor worldwide. nowadays, legionella pneumophila is one of the most common microorganisms responsible for cap. we designed this study to investigate the antigen test as a useful, simple and rapid test for early diagnosis of legionella pneumophila. materials and methods we enrolled 118 patients (32 ...

The diagnosis of severe Streptococcus pneumoniae infection relies heavily on insensitive culture techniques. To improve the usefulness of PCR assays, we developed a dual-PCR protocol (targeted at pneumolysin and autolysin) for EDTA blood samples. This was compared to the Binax NOW S. pneumoniae urine antigen test in patients with bacteremic pneumococcal infections. Patients with nonbacteremic c...

A murine hybridoma-derived antibody (IPH.134) has been produced which has apparent high binding specificity for an extract of Schistosoma japonicum adult worms. No binding was detected to extracts of S. japonicum eggs or to extracts from other adult trematodes (Fasciola hepatica, Paragonimus westermanii, Clonorchis sinensis, and Schistosoma mansoni) and several other helminths and protozoa. Whe...

Introduction: Occurrence of detectable amounts of viral antigen or viral particles in the blood of infected patients with Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a significant characteristic of HBV infection. Detection of HBV antigen or its DNA among individuals of a community is a crucial factor to know the burden of HBV infection. Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) is a suitable marker of HBV infection b...

Systemic immunization with antigen coupled to monoclonal antibody (MAb) has been used by several investigators to increase the number of MAb-producing hybridomas against an antigen and to elicit antibodies specific for poorly immunogenic epitopes. This strategy has implications for vaccine design in that protective immunity is not necessarily directed at immunodominant epitopes of pathogens and...

Human thymus cells and blasts from some patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) express similar cell surface properties. This suggests that this type of ALL originates in the thymus or alternatively that these properties of ALL blasts reflect changes occurring during blastogenesis. To test these possibilities, we determined whether mitogen-thymus antigens found on blasts from E+ALL an...

We examined 87 Brazilian individuals of a group of 132 that, on July and November 1994, participated in a peace mission in Mozambique. They served in an endemic area for haematobic schistosomiasis, where they swam in Licungo river during leisure time. Their arithmetic mean age was 31 year and all of them were male. Their urine test showed that 30 (34.5%) eliminated S. haematobium eggs and 55 (6...

background: computerized preventive screening software is a cost effective intervention tool to address non-communicable chronic diseases. shiraz smart screening software (ssss) was developed as an innovative tool for qualified screening. it allows simultaneous smart screening of several high-burden chronic diseases and supports reminder notification functionality. the extent in which ssss affe...

A new test of inheritance, S, is proposed, which uses information from affected as well as unaffected siblings in the fam­ ily. The siblings are analyzed in terms of similarities of haplotypes. The distribution of the proposed S­test is derived under the null hypothesis of random inheritance. Mean and variance are obtained for the distribution. The test is then applied to data sets publ...