A wide spectrum of human diseases can result from chlamydial infections. Psittacosis is an infectious disease of avians caused by Chlamydia psittaci that can manifest in severe systemic disease in humans.' Chlamydia trachornatis infections are the leading cause of sexually transmitted genital tract disease, the only cause of classic trachoma, and also result in perinatal infant pneumonia and co...

Pneumonia is one of the most frequent complications in acquired immunodeficiency syndrome-patients with Pneumocystis carinii as the leading cause. The true prevalence of atypical agents such as Chlamydia pneumoniae, C. trachomatis, Legionella pneumophila and Mycoplasma pneumoniae in this population of patients is unknown as the currently used method for diagnosing these agents is measurement of...

Among the many theories of the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis has been a possible role for infection. However, the possibility that a viral infection initiates or perpetuates damage to the arterial wall has received less attention than other more widely recognized risk factors. Recently, a newly described Chlamydia species, Chlamydia pneumoniae, strain TWAR,' has been associated with atheroscl...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of clarithromycin and erythromycin in the treatment of community-acquired pneumonia in children. METHODS Children with community-acquired pneumonia were randomly assigned to receive 10-day regimens of either clarithromycin 15 mg/kg/day, twice a day, or erythromycin 30-50 mg/kg/day, four times daily. RESULTS A total ...

BACKGROUND Identifying the aetiological agent of atypical pneumonia in human can sometimes be a tedious process, especially in cases where Mycoplasma pneumoniae, Legionella species and Chlamydia pneumoniae are ruled out. In such cases, a correct anamnesis of the patient is basic to clarify which pathogens might have produced the infection. For this reason, health professionals including veterin...

Pneumonia due to serotypes D-K of Chlamydia trachomatis occurred in a 10-week-old baby, who had been successfully treated with chlortetracycline eye ointment for chlamydial ophthalmia neonatorum, and in a 7-week-old baby being treated for the same condition. Clinical signs of pneumonia were minimal. Such chlamydial pneumonia in infants must be under-diagnosed. Infants with chlamydial ophthalmia...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the possible link between symptomatic carotid atherosclerotic plaque and Chlamydia pneumoniae. BACKGROUND Recently, several studies have demonstrated that there may be a possible link between Chlamydia pneumonia and carotid atherosclerosis, however the real role of Chlamydia pneumoniae is not completely understood. METHOD This is a prospective study with a total of ...

The human serological response was analyzed by using sera from patients who were serologically positive but isolation negative for Chlamydia pneumoniae and from patients with proven C. pneumoniae infection based on serology and isolation. To assess whether seroreactivity to C. pneumoniae proteins had potential diagnostic value, the cross-reactivities of these sera to other Chlamydia species and...

Chlamydia trachomatis and Chlamydia pneumoniae appear to share a common immunobiology with about 80% of their protein coding genes being orthologs. Progress in DNA vaccine development for C. trachomatis suggests that such a subunit approach may prove useful for C. pneumoniae. The recent finding that it is possible to select for chlamydiae with targeted mutations in key metabolic genes together ...

The in vitro activity of six cathelicidin peptides against 25 strains of Chlamydia was investigated. SMAP-29 proved to be the most active peptide, reducing the inclusion numbers of all 10 strains of Chlamydia trachomatis tested by > or =50% at 10 microg/ml. This peptide was also active against C. pneumoniae and C. felis.