Te-Wen Chang

Clinical and Serologic Studies of an Outbreak of Rubella in a Vaccinated Population

HUMAN studies of several vaccines prepared from attenuated rubella virus have indicated their immunogenicity, noncommunicability and relative lack of untoward effects in children. Because a decreas...

Treatment of Relapsing Clostridium difficile Diarrhea with Lactobacillus GG

Thirty-two patients with relapsing C. difficile diarrhea were treated with a lyophilized preparation of Lactobacillus GG; 23 were outpatients treated in Boston, Massachusetts, and nine were nursing-home patients in Baltimore, Maryland. After receiving Lactobacillus GG, all subjects improved symptomatically. Twenty-seven (84%) patients were cured by the single treatment, based on a minimum follow-up of 2 months. Five others relapsed within 10 days after initial Lactobacillus GG treatment; three were retreated and cured, and two were lost to follow-up and are considered failures. The use of Lactobacillus GG offers a safe and. relatively effective alternative to antibiotic therapy for relapsing C. difficile diarrhea.

Antiviral activity of isoprinosine in vitro and in vivo.

Isoprinosine, a derivative of inosine, has been found to exert slight activity in tissue cultures infected with herpesvirus hominis, vaccinia, poliomyelitis (type 3), enteric cytopathogenic human orphan (echo) virus (type 11), and Eastern equine encephalitis virus. It exerts no activity in tissue cultures infected with measles, mumps, and Western equine encephalitis virus. In contrast, the drug appears to decrease morbidity and mortality in animals infected with herpesvirus and influenza virus. It was without effect on encephalo-myocarditis virus infection in mice.

Effects of feeding lactobacillus GG on lethal irradiation in mice

Mice exposed to 1400 rads of total body irradiation experienced 80%-100% mortality in 2 wk. Bacteremia was demonstrated in all dead animals. Feeding Lactobacillus GG strain reduced Pseudomonas bacteremia and prolonged survival time in animals colonized with this organism. In animals not colonized with Pseudomonas, feeding Lactobacillus GG also produced some reduction in early deaths, and there was less Gram-negative bacteremia in these animals compared with controls.

Therapy of antibiotic-associated pseudomembranous colitis

Seven patients treated with oral cholestyramine for antibiotic-associated pseudomembranous colitis are reported. Response was variable with only one patient having a totally satisfactory clinical outcome. Five of seven patients had continued systemic signs with fever and ieukocytosis throughout the course of cholestyramine. Two observations were relatively consistent. First, six of the seven patients had a decrease in the number of daily stools during therapy. Second, all patients showed persistence of the cytopathic toxin in stools obtained after three to seven days of cholestyramine therapy. Six patients who were subsequently treated with oral vancomycin had a prompt clinical improvement and clearance of the cytopathic toxin in the stool.

Treatment of Clostridium difficile colitis in hamsters with a lipopeptide antibiotic, LY146032.

LY146032, an acidic lipopeptide antibiotic which inhibits the biosynthesis of cell wall peptidoglycan, was found to be effective in delaying death in a hamster model of pseudomembranous colitis. A dose of 0.05 mg/day was effective. The equivalent protection with vancomycin required a dose 100-fold higher, i.e., 5 mg/day.

Genital herpes: Treatment with methylene blue and light exposure.

ABSTRACT: Fifty‐six patients with genital herpes were treated by photodynamic inactivation of herpesvirus by methylene blue (36 patients), proflavine (10) or neutral red (10). The first 35 patients were randomly selected for treatment with one of the three dyes. All the others were initially treated with methylene blue. The disease was temporarily eradicated in about 70% of instances by exposure of the lesions to light plus topically applied methylene blue, neutral red or proflavine. Relapses, however, were not prevented or appreciably reduced.

Prevention of Herpes Keratoconjunctivitis in Rabbits By Silver Sulfadiazine

Silver sulfadiazine, at a concentration of 10 μg/ml when applied immediately after infection by Herpesvirus hominis, prevented the development of acute herpetic keratoconjunctivitis in rabbits. The efficacy was inversely related to the size of inoculum. Subclinical infections were observed in the drug-treated eyes.

Photodynamic Inactivation of Herpesvirus Hominis by Methylene Blue

Conclusion Methylene blue, in a concentraion of 10−5 M was virostatic in the presence of light but not in the dark for 31 of 37 strains of fresh isolates of herpesvirus hominis. Resistance to the dye developed during treatment. This photodynamic pattern was almost identical to that of neutral red which produced an identical effect. This was not true for proflavine which was active in the dark in many instances. Cross insensitivity between proflavine and methylene blue was not observed.

Treatment with levamisole of recurrent herpes genitalis.

A double-blind study was carried out to investigate the possibility of therapeutic effect of levamisole on recurrent progenital herpes. One hundred and nine patients, including 53 females, entered the study, but only 75 completed. Levamisole, 50 mg three times daily for 3 days, was started at the first sign of recurrence. The study period consisted of 6 visits or 12 months, whichever came first. No statistical differences were observed between levamisole and placebo groups when comparing the duration of the lesion and the degree of pain, although less pain was observed among those on levamisole. The interval between attacks was increasingly prolonged in the levamisole-treated group, and reached a significant level at the sixth visit. However, analysis on the basis of mean cumulative number of days between attacks showed no significant differences throughout the study period. Because of occasional neutropenia and generalized urticaria, and because of the absence of clear-cut clinical improvement of statistical significance, levamisole was considered of limited benefit to patients with recurrent genital herpes infection.