BackgroundColistin-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa) has been defined as pandrug-resistant (PDR) strain. Outbreaks of PDR P. aeruginosa especially in pulmonary tract infections due to contaminated bronchoscopes have rarely been reported. The emergence of pandrug-resistant strains in both CF (Cystic Fibrosis) and non-CF clinical isolates over recent years remains of a great concern. Hospital wards contaminated with PDR P. aeruginosa infection, must be shot down until their eradication. Health Authorities must be informed immediately and infection control strategies must be implemented.AimTo report such an outbreak and modify the infection control strategy in an academic hospital in Ankara Turkey.MethodsFrom October to December 2013, PDR-Pseudomonas aerogionsa were identified from bronchial cultures of 15 patients who had undergone bronchoscopy prior to the infection. Three batches of surveillance cultures were obtained from the environmental objects and healthcare workers related to the procedures. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) was used for bacterial typing. Antimicrobial susceptibility was assessed by disc diffusion and E-test methods.FindingsA total of 70 specimens were obtained during the first surveillance operation. One Colistin-resistant P. aeroginosa was isolated from a bronchoscope. Although the disinfection protocols for bronchoscope were revised and implemented, seven additional bronchial cases were identified thereafter. The pathogen was identified from two subsequent surveillance cultures and was not eliminated until Ethylene oxide sterilization was added to the disinfection protocol. PFGE revealed that all 15 isolates from the patients and the three isolates from the bronchoscope shared a common pattern with minor variance. XbaI restriction enzyme turned out better than SpeI in interpreting bacterial pulse types with BioNumerics 6.0. The most suitable cut off value for SpeI was above 80% Dice similarity while for XbaI above 95%Dice similarity with BioNumerics 6.0.ConclusionThe outbreak of “Colistin” pan drug-resistant Pseudomonas aeroginosa was caused by a contaminated bronchoscope and was terminated by the implementation of a revised disinfection protocol for bronchoscope.

The manuscript titled “Vacuoles of Candida yeast behave as a specialized niche for Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori)” not only has not been prepared in a scientific manner but the methodology used was not adequate, and therefore the conclusion reached was not correct. First of all, “yeast” is a broad terminology covering a great number of genera and species of unicellular micro-organisms. The authors should have defined the organism with its binary scientific name. This measure would allow experiment reproduction by the scientific community. Moreover, the criteria established by Robert Koch to identify a specific microorganism or pathogen was not adopted in the methodology used. Regarding the methodology applied, use of the chicken egg-yolk (IgY) antibody and PCR of the apparently tainted yeast population to prove H. pylori existence in the yeast vacuoles might be main factors for their wrong conclusions. Bacterial tropism toward yeast extract is a known phenomenon, and yeast extract is one of the main ingredients in culture media. Their internalization through phagocytosis or similar pathways does not seem possible or practical because of the thick and cellulosic yeast wall. While the small size of yeast cells does not support their ability in harboring several H. pylori, other observations such as inefficiency of anti-fungal therapy as anti-Helicobacter therapy strongly reject the conclusion reached by the above-mentioned article.

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The above article, published online on 30 June 2015 in Wiley Online Library (http://wileyonlinelibrary.com), has been retracted by agreement between the journal Editor in Chief, David Graham, and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. The retraction has been agreed due to the inclusion of plagiarised content from “Vacuoles of Candida yeast as a specialized niche for Helicobacter pylori”, World J Gastroenterol. 2014 May 14; 20(18): 5263–5273. doi: . The corresponding author, N Alipour, has taken responsibility for the manuscript and the unacknowledged overlap of which the other authors named on the paper were unaware References Alipour, N., Gaeini, N., Taner, A., Yıldız, F., Masseret, S. and Malfertheiner, P. Vacuoles of Acanthamoeba castellanii Behave as a Specialized Shelter (host) for Helicobacter pylori. Helicobacter (2015), 20:485. doi: Siavoshi, F. and Saniee, P. (2014) Vacuoles of Candida yeast as a specialized niche for Helicobacter pylori. World J Gastroenterol. 2014 May 14; 20(18): 5263–5273. doi: