Surgical trauma and reperfusion injury appear to represent the predominant factors resulting in immunologic changes after cardiac surgery. Cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) may be less important for immune response and acute-phase reactions than previously suspected. In addition, our data indicate a relationship between IL-6 synthesis and the degree of surgical trauma. IL-8 appears to be elevated only after cardiac surgery whereas PCT liberation depended on the use of ECC.

Yersinia pestis, the etiologic agent of the disease plague, has been implicated in three historical pandemics. These include the third pandemic of the 19th and 20th centuries, during which plague was spread around the world, and the second pandemic of the 14th–17th centuries, which included the infamous epidemic known as the Black Death. Previous studies have confirmed that Y. pestis caused these two more recent pandemics. However, a highly spirited debate still continues as to whether Y. pestis caused the so-called Justinianic Plague of the 6th–8th centuries AD. By analyzing ancient DNA in two independent ancient DNA laboratories, we confirmed unambiguously the presence of Y. pestis DNA in human skeletal remains from an Early Medieval cemetery. In addition, we narrowed the phylogenetic position of the responsible strain down to major branch 0 on the Y. pestis phylogeny, specifically between nodes N03 and N05. Our findings confirm that Y. pestis was responsible for the Justinianic Plague, which should end the controversy regarding the etiology of this pandemic. The first genotype of a Y. pestis strain that caused the Late Antique plague provides important information about the history of the plague bacillus and suggests that the first pandemic also originated in Asia, similar to the other two plague pandemics.

In order to elucidate the epidemiological importance of hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome in Germany, the prevalence of antibodies against hantaviruses was determined in 13,358 sera from residents of various geographic regions, 1,284 sera from occupational risk groups and 287 sera from chronic hemodialysis patients. Serological investigations were performed using a highly specific transferable solid phase enzyme immunoassay based on the recombinant nucleocapsid proteins of a Hantaan and a Puumala serotype strain. The overall antibody prevalence was found to be 1.68%. In the serum panels from western and southern Germany, it was determined to be 1.83% on average in contrast to only 0.8% in the panel from eastern Germany. An endemic focus revealing an antibody prevalence of 3.12% was detected in a low-mountain area called Suebian Alb, which is located in the federal state of Baden-Württemberg. Occupational risk groups and a group of chronic hemodialysis patients showed a significantly elevated antibody prevalence ranging from 3.3% to 10%. The Puumala serotype was found to be the prevailing virus, but the percentage of sera predominantly recognizing the Hantaan nucleocapsid protein increased towards the south and the east and was significantly elevated in dialysis patients.

Serodiagnosis of Lyme disease is hampered by low specificity of the standard assays currently used. The Western immunoblot has therefore been proposed as a potential confirmatory test. For the present report, the method was evaluated by testing sera from patients with clinically defined early- and late-stage borreliosis. In early-stage borreliosis, the 41,000-molecular-weight flagellin protein (41K) of Borrelia burgdorferi was the major antigen detected by antibodies in sera, but the specificity of the reaction pattern was dependent on the intensity of the band. The evaluation of different interpretation rules based on a semiquantitative record of band intensities showed the highest specificity (96%) and a corresponding sensitivity of 78% if there was at least one distinct (optical density range, 0.2 to 0.4) immunoglobulin G and immunoglobulin M reaction with the 41K band. Blots of B. burgdorferi proteins were also probed with sera from patients who were diagnosed by clinical criteria as having stage III Lyme borreliosis and with a control group of sera from asymptomatic persons with positive antibody titers against B. burgdorferi in the standard assays. Reaction patterns were recorded densitometrically. Statistical analysis and graphical marker analysis revealed significant discriminating capacities and relatively high specificities, respectively, for the 94K, 30K, and 21K bands, whereas the 41K and 60K bands were not discriminative between the symptomatic and asymptomatic groups and were specific only at high intensity values. Different multiple-band rules were evaluated, revealing a low specificity for positivity definitions of the type "four or five bands present" if the rules were not confined to known major bands.