Thirty-four patients with acute myocardial infarction were treated prospectively using a new strategy of prehospital intravenous streptokinase given by a physician-operated mobile intensive care unit. The 29 prehospital-treated patients who had experienced no previous myocardial infarction were compared to a similar group treated with streptokinase inhospital. Patients receiving streptokinase i...

Background Necrotizing fasciitis (NF) retains a very high mortality rate despite prompt and adequate antibiotic treatment and surgical debridement. Necrotizing fasciitis has recently been associated with Streptococcus dysgalactiae subspecies equisimilis (SDSE). Methods We investigated the causes of a very severe clinical manifestation of SDSE-NF by assessing both host and pathogen factors. ...

While Streptococcus pyogenes is consistently susceptible toward penicillin, therapeutic failure of penicillin treatment has been reported repeatedly and a considerable number of patients exhibit allergic reactions to this substance. At the same time, streptococcal resistance to alternative antibiotics, e.g., macrolides, has increased. Taken together, these facts demand the development of novel ...

BACKGROUND Worldwide, Streptococcus pyogenes is the leading cause of bacterial pharyngitis. To reduce the use of antibiotics, antimicrobial phytochemical-containing remedies, which have long been in use in traditional medicine, may provide new approaches for management of streptococcal pharyngitis. The objective of this study was to assess the inhibitory activities of 25 natural phenolic compou...

Highly purified human (Lys-forms), cat, dog, and rabbit plasminogens showed significantly different sensitivities to activation by highly purified streptokinase. The most sensitive plasminogen is the human zymogen, followed by the cat, dog, and rabbit zymogens, respectively. These human, cat, dog, and rabbit zymogens reacted with streptokinase to form homogeneous equimolar plasminogen-streptoki...

Fibrinolytic enzymes, particularly streptokinase, are now widely used to treat empyema thoracis. Recent in vitro evidence suggests that streptokinase has no effect on pus viscosity but that deoxyribonuclease (DNase) reduces the viscosity of pus. We report the first use of human recombinant DNase given intrapleurally to treat an empyema which had not resolved after standard treatment with strept...

BACKGROUND The nonsurgical medical approach with use of fibrinolytic agent is an alternative modality in management of chronic empyemas. With the introduction of purer forms of streptokinase, there has been renewed interest generated in the use of intrapleural thrombolytics with documented successful drainage of difficult to drain chronic empyemas. To evaluate the utility of streptokinase in th...

Streptokinase activates platelets, limiting its effectiveness as a thrombolytic agent. The role of antistreptokinase antibodies and proteases in streptokinase-induced platelet activation was investigated. Streptokinase induced localization of human IgG to the platelet surface, platelet aggregation, and thromboxane A2 production. These effects were inhibited by a monoclonal antibody to the plate...

The therapeutic properties of plasminogen activators are dictated by their mechanism of action. Unlike staphylokinase, a single domain protein, streptokinase, a 3-domain (alpha, beta, and gamma) molecule, nonproteolytically activates human (h)-plasminogen and protects plasmin from inactivation by alpha(2)-antiplasmin. Because a streptokinase-like mechanism was hypothesized to require the strept...