Piyali Datta

Ventilator-associated pneumonia: Its incidence, the risk factor and drug resistance pattern in a tertiary care hospital

Background: Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is an infection of the lung that develops 48 h or longer after mechanical ventilation. Objectives: The present study was aimed to find out the bacteriological profile of VAP along with the resistance pattern of bacteriological isolates. Materials and Methods: A prospective observational study was conducted from January 2013 to May 2014 among 791 patients admitted in critical care units of our tertiary care hospital. After selection by applying inclusion and exclusion criteria endotracheal aspirates were collected from ventilated patients. Samples were subjected to further processing by Gram-staining, culture, biochemical testing and antibiogram. Results : Out of 791 patients admitted in intensive care unit in this tertiary care hospital with VAP 540 (68.2%) patients were culture positive. Pseudomonas aeruginosa was most commonly isolated pathogen of both early onset and late onset VAP. In early VAP Acinetobacter baumannii showed 62.5% metallo-beta-lactamase (MBL) positivity. P. aeruginosa showed 27.5% MBL positivity, whereas in late onset VAP, 71.4% A. baumannii isolates and 75.8% P. aeruginosa isolates showed MBL positivity, respectively. Conclusion : Simple prevention of aspiration, sterilization of equipments, hand washing of personnel can reduce VAP in hospital care setting.

Abrupt change of rotation axis in {sup 109}Ag

The electromagnetic transition rates for all the high spin levels of the yrast sequence of {sup 109}Ag have been measured. The observed behavior of the magnetic dipole transition rates as a function of angular momentum establishes that there is a sudden change in rotation axis associated with rotational alignment of two neutrons. The projected shell model calculations give a consistent picture of the observed phenomena in {sup 109}Ag.