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In fall 2009 the emergency department of a clinic in Greece with increased patient visits due to influenza-like illness observed a particular pattern in the complete blood count (CBC) of these patients. In 90% of all patients with probable influenza, lymphopenia and/or monocytosis were present. Relative lymphopenia with or without monocytosis appears to be a laboratory marker for H1N1 virus infection, a finding that could play a major role in early identifying and treating patients with new influenza A. A ratio of lymphocytes to monocytes below 2 is proposed as a screening tool for influenza infection instead of rapid tests.

A case-control study was conducted in a rural area of Achaia in western Greece to examine the risk factors of brucellosis. The participants in the study were 414 (7.5% of the whole population of the investigated municipality). The cases (n = 140) were defined by clinical symptoms and confirmed by a positive standard agglutination test (SAT). All cases have been diagnosed between January 1997 and March 1999 either by physicians of the Local Health Center or by private practitioners. Two criteria were basic to establish the disease. The first one was clinical symptoms such as fever, fatigue, arthralgia and generalized aches and the second was a titer of SAT at least 1:160. Controls (n = 274) were matched with cases for age and gender in a 1:2 ratio. Approximately collection of controls was performed among those presented to the local Health Center for other diseases. Data were collected by the same physician via a personal interview and analyzed by logistic regression models. The overall incidence of the disease in the region was found to be 1110/100,000. Taking 'no ownership of animals' and 'no contact of animals' as the reference category, the strongest risk factor was trauma during animal delivery with an odds ratio (OR): 24.3; 95% confidence interval (CI): 8.8-67.5 following by absence of stables (OR: 14.4; 95% CI: 4.7-44.1). After application of multivariate stepwise analysis the adjusted risk factors remaining in the model were the place of residence (OR: 1.8; 95% CI: 1.1-3.1), professional occupation with animals (OR: 2.4; 95% CI: 1.2-4.8), absence of stables (OR: 9.1; 95% CI: 2.2-38.7) and trauma during animal delivery (OR: 11.2; 95% CI: 3.2-39.1). Consumption of cheese from pasteurized milk or consumption of cheese matured for over 3 months was found to be a protective factor (OR: 0.27; 95% CI: 0.11-0.67). The detection of brucellosis in animals is essential for the prevention of the disease. In addition efficient preventive measures should be established in order to eliminate the disease.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is an important cause of both healthcare-associated MRSA (HA-MRSA) and community-associated MRSA (CA-MRSA) infections. Severe MRSA infections have been associated with the virulence factor Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL). The aim of this study was to investigate susceptibility patterns, the presence of toxin genes, including that encoding PVL, and clonality among MRSA isolates collected from patients in Greece over a 12-year period. MRSA isolates were collected from January 2001 to December 2012 from six different hospitals. Antibiotic susceptibility was determined with the disk diffusion method and the Etest. The presence of the toxic shock syndrome toxin-1 gene (tst), the enterotoxin gene cluster (egc) and the PVL gene was tested with PCR. The genotypic characteristics of the strains were analysed by SCCmec and agr typing, and clonality was determined with pulsed-field gel electrophoresis and multilocus sequence typing. An increasing rate of MRSA among S. aureus infections was detected up to 2008. The majority of PVL-positive MRSA isolates belonged to a single clone, sequence type (ST)80-IV, which was disseminated both in the community and in hospitals, especially during the warmest months of the year. Carriage of tst was associated with ST30-IV, whereas egc was distributed in different clones. CA-MRSA isolates were recovered mainly from skin and soft tissue infections, whereas HA-MRSA isolates were associated with surgical and wound infections. During the period 2001-2012, ST80-IV predominated in the community and infiltrated the hospital settings in Greece, successfully replacing other PVL-positive clones. The predominance of ST239-III in HA-MRSA infections was constant, whereas new clones have also emerged. Polyclonality was statistically significantly higher among CA-MRSA isolates and isolates from adult patients.

Survival trends in survival for laryngeal cancer in Europe are varied. Five-year survival varied around 60-64% but numbers below 50% have been commonly reported. The aim of this study was to assess the factors influencing survival in patients with laryngeal cancer in our region. A total of 128 male and 5 female patients with larynx cancer (91 glottic and 42 supraglottic) were treated at Patras University Hospital between March 1992 and August 2004. Except 3, all were smokers and 56 (41%) heavy alcohol users. Postsurgical staging showed that most had been classified at stages III (38%) and IV (49%). By histology, 31 tumors were classified as poorly differentiated, 78 as moderately differentiated and 23 as well differentiated. All patients underwent laryngectomy with extension of the procedure where appropriate. Also, a total of 45 patients received adjuvant therapy (either chemotherapy or radiotherapy). Farmers, construction workers, professional drivers and mechanics and coffee shop and bar employees account for more than 70% of patients. Results showed that 64 (48.1%) patients died during the follow-up, 58 (43.6%) of them died from cause related to their disease. With a median follow-up of 25 months, the 5-year disease-free survival (DFS) was 53% and the 5-year overall survival (OS) was 45%. Significant prognostic factors for OS included patient age, advanced staging, heavy alcohol use and poor tumor differentiation while for DFS affected mainly by poor tumor differentiation. We conclude that the disease stage at presentation, tumor grade and alcohol consumption prove to be important predictors for the OS as well as the DFS in our series.

BackgroundBrucellosis continues to be an important source of morbidity in several countries, particularly among agricultural and pastoral populations. The purpose of this study was to examine if there is an effect on the incidence of human brucellosis after the implementation of an animal brucellosis control programme.MethodsThe study was conducted in the Municipality of Tritaia in the Prefecture of Achaia in Western Greece during the periods 1997–1998 and 2000–2002. Health education efforts were made during 1997–1998 to make the public take preventive measures. In the time period from January 1999 to August 2002 a vaccination programme against animal brucellosis was realised in the specific region. The vaccine used was the B. melitensis Rev-1 administered by the conjuctival route. Comparisons were performed between the incidence rates of the two studied periods.ResultsThere was a great fall in the incidence rate between 1997–1998 (10.3 per 1,000 population) and the period 2000–2002 after the vaccination (0.3 per 1,000 population). The considerable decrease of the human incidence rate is also observed in the period 2000–2002 among persons whose herds were not as yet vaccinated (1.4 vs. 10.3 per 1,000 population), indicating a possible role of health education in the decline of human brucellosis.ConclusionThe study reveals a statistically significant decline in the incidence of human brucellosis after the vaccination programme and underlines the importance of an ongoing control of animal brucellosis in the prevention of human brucellosis. The reduction of human brucellosis can be best achieved by a combination of health education and mass animal vaccination.

Complex posttraumatic stress disorder (Complex PTSD) has been recently proposed as a distinct clinical entity in the WHO International Classification of Diseases, 11th version, due to be published, two decades after its first initiation. It is described as an enhanced version of the current definition of PTSD, with clinical features of PTSD plus three additional clusters of symptoms namely emotional dysregulation, negative self-cognitions and interpersonal hardship, thus resembling the clinical features commonly encountered in borderline personality disorder (BPD). Complex PTSD is related to complex trauma which is defined by its threatening and entrapping context, generally interpersonal in nature. In this manuscript, we review the current findings related to traumatic events predisposing the above-mentioned disorders as well as the biological correlates surrounding them, along with their clinical features. Furthermore, we suggest that besides the present distinct clinical diagnoses (PTSD; Complex PTSD; BPD), there is a cluster of these comorbid disorders, that follow a continuum of trauma and biological severity on a spectrum of common or similar clinical features and should be treated as such. More studies are needed to confirm or reject this hypothesis, particularly in clinical terms and how they correlate to clinical entities’ biological background, endorsing a shift from the phenomenologically only classification of psychiatric disorders towards a more biologically validated classification.

Tinea unguium, known as onychomycosis, is a dermatophyte infection of nails with worldwide distribution. Conventional methods for detecting fungi in nail specimens are either non-specific (microscopy) or insensitive (culture). PCR has been used to improve sensitivity in detecting the causative fungi in nail specimens from patients with suspected onychomycosis. Results of a commercial multiplex PCR for the detection of dermatophytes, especially Trichophyton rubrum (the main dermatophyte implicated), as compared to conventional methods are presented. A total of 418 nail scrapings obtained from dermatological outpatients were handled in the Laboratory of Microbiology between May 2010 and May 2013. Among them, multiplex PCR detected 126 (30.1 %) dermatophyte-positive samples, whereas culture revealed 44 (10.5 %). Direct microscopy revealed 63 (15.1 %) positive specimens. T. rubrum was identified in 116 out of 126 (92 %) positive PCR samples and 40 out of 44 (91 %) dermatophyte-positive cultures. Implementation of PCR increased species-specific detection of dermatophytes by 21.1 %, leading to a threefold increase as compared to culture alone. Multiplex PCR offers a time-saving diagnostic tool for tinea unguium and augments laboratory assistance to clinical evaluation for proper treatment. INTRODUCTIONTinea refers to superficial infection of skin, hair and nails due to one of three fungal genera, Microsporum, Epidermophyton and Trichophyton, collectively known as dermatophytes (Clayton & Midgley, 1989;Hay, 1995;Moriarty et al., 2012). These associated infections are among the most common diseases worldwide and cause serious chronic morbidity. Tinea unguium, a dermatophyte infection of nails, also known as onychomycosis, has a prevalence of at least 12.4 % in the general population of Europe (Moriarty et al., 2012), whereas in older individuals it is as high as 50 % (Salgo et al., 2003). The disease is often atypical and aggressive in patients with untreated human immunodeficiency virus infection. Patients with psoriasis not only have an increased risk of onychomycosis but also require laboratory confirmation as the two conditions may be clinically similar (Moriarty et al., 2012). Trichophyton rubrum is the main pathogen implicated (Brillowska-Dabrowska et al., 2007;Tsoumani et al., 2011), followed by Trichophyton interdigitale, formerly Trichophyton mentagrophytes var. interdigitale (Cafarchia et al., 2013;Clayton & Midgley, 1989; Gräser et al., 1999;Nenoff et al., 2007). Less commonly associated species are Epidermophyton floccosum and Trichophyton verrucosum (Moriarty et al., 2012). In addition to dermatophytes, Candida and non-dermatophyte moulds may be recovered from clinically affected nails; however, their clinical significance is controversial (Brillowska-Dabrowska et al., 2007). Conventional diagnosis is based on detection of fungal elements by direct microscopy of clinical specimens, followed by culture and morphological identification of the fungus. The whole procedure is time-consuming, requiring 10 to 15 ...