No abstract

The administration of GM-CSF blunted the viral rebound following interruption of HAART, and largely prevented a decrease of CD4 cell counts during a 12-weeks-treatment interruption. A better understanding of the underlying mechanism(s) may help to identify synergistic treatment targets and improved administration protocols to enhance control of chronic HIV infection.

We did not find renal dysfunction on tenofovir among Thai patients included in the Staccato trial. Tenofovir could be safely prescribed at a standard dosage of 300 mg once daily in the Thai population.

In 115 patients whose scheduled treatment interruptions (STI) lasted 24 weeks, the CD4 cell count declined by a median of 30 cells/ml/week during the first 4 weeks, compared with 3 cells/ml/week during the next 20 weeks. In multivariate regression, a pronounced early fall in CD4 cells correlated with a higher CD4 cell count at the start of STI, with more gain in CD4 cells during antiretroviral treatment preceding STI, and with a higher viral load at week 4.

Objectives: To measure the reliability of data mining for indicators related to patient treatment at hospital discharge. Methods: Design: Retrospective cohort study. Population: Patients discharged alive after an admission for heart failure in a general internal medicine department from 2009 to 2010. Data: Key treatments at patient's discharge extracted from the clinical information system compared with data extracted manually from the medical records. Endpoint: Accuracy of data mining for treatment prescription. Analysis: Sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values (PPVs and NPVs) of data mining for angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and betablockers prescription discharge. The gold standard was manual data extraction. We then investigated causes of discrepancies between the two methods. Results: A total of 724 patients were included. At discharge, 85.2% received an ACE inhibitor and 72.4% a beta-blocker.For ACE inhibitors, data mining yielded a sensitivity of 90%, a specificity of 100%, a PPV of 100% and an NPV of 64%. Corresponding values for beta-blockers were 95%, 100%, 100% and 88%, respectively. Main causes for discrepancy were: omission of some molecules in the electronic query used; non-standard writing of a prescription in the clinical information system; formats incorrectly interpreted by the query.