Efficacy of a brief case management intervention to link recently diagnosed HIV-infected persons to care

OBJECTIVE: The Antiretroviral Treatment Access Study (ARTAS) assessed a case management intervention to improve linkage to care for persons recently receiving an HIV diagnosis. METHODS: Participants were recently diagnosed HIV-infected persons in Atlanta, Baltimore, Los Angeles and Miami. They were randomized to either standard of care (SOC) passive referral or case management (CM) for linkage to nearby HIV clinics. The SOC arm received information about HIV and local care resources; the CM intervention arm included up to five contacts with a case manager over a 90-day period. The outcome measure was self-reported attendance at an HIV care clinic at least twice over a 12-month period. RESULTS: A higher proportion of the 136 case-managed participants than the 137 SOC participants visited an HIV clinician at least once within 6 months [78 versus 60%; adjusted relative risk (RR(adj)), 1.36; P = 0.0005) and at least twice within 12 months (64 versus 49%; RR(adj), 1.41; P = 0.006). Individuals older than 40 years, Hispanic participants, individuals enrolled within 6 months of an HIV-seropositive test result and participants without recent crack cocaine use were all significantly more likely to have made two visits to an HIV care provider. We estimate the cost of such case management to be 600-1200 US dollars per client. CONCLUSION: A brief intervention by a case manager was associated with a significantly higher rate of successful linkage to HIV care. Brief case management is an affordable and effective resource that can be offered to HIV-infected clients soon after their HIV diagnosis.     

Risk factors for syngeneic graft-versus-host disease after adult hematopoietic cell transplantation

Syngeneic graft-versus-host disease (sGVHD) has been described after hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) but remains poorly defined. We retrospectively reviewed adult syngeneic HCTs at our center (1980-2002) for sGVHD to investigate incidence, morbidity, and risk factors with a primary focus on parity. Among 119 transplantations, there were 21 cases of biopsy-proven sGVHD. The cumulative incidence was 18%, with multiorgan involvement in 6 cases and 1 death. sGVHD was more frequent when the donor was parous (32%) than nulliparous (9%) or male (13%; P = .03) and when the recipient was parous (31%) than nulliparous (7%) or male (13%; P = .02). Other univariable risk factors included older age (P < .01), busulfan/melphalan/thiotepa conditioning (P < .01), interleukin-2 (P = .02), HLA-A26 (P = .03), and more recent transplantation year (P < .01). Overall, risk factors were similar to those described in GVHD. Although an independent effect of parity could not be completely separated from other factors, donor and recipient pregnancy history merits further investigation.      

Management of patients with community-acquired pneumonia treated in hospital in Sweden

To investigate the management of patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) treated in hospital in Sweden, a multicentre retrospective cohort study was performed with medical record review of 982 patients (mean age 63 y) at 17 departments of infectious diseases at hospitals in Sweden. Information on antimicrobial therapy, demographic characteristics, comorbid conditions, physical examination findings, and laboratory and microbiological test results were recorded. Outcome measures were in-hospital mortality and length of hospital stay (LOS). Cultures were obtained from blood in 80% and from sputum in 22% of the patients. A microbiological aetiology was determined for 23% of the patients, with Streptococcus pneumoniae as the dominating agent (9%). The initial antibiotic treatment was mostly given intravenously (78%). Penicillin (50%) or a cephalosporin (30%) was the most common choice. Both of these drugs were usually given as a single agent. The overall mortality was 3.5% and the mean LOS was 6.4 d. Thus, the outcome was favourable despite the empirical antibiotic treatment having a narrow spectrum compared with the broader approach recommended in most recent guidelines on the management of CAP. These findings suggest that a majority of patients who are hospitalized with moderately severe pneumonia can be treated initially with penicillin alone.     

A phase II trial evaluating the efficacy of high-dose Radioiodinated Tositumomab (Anti-CD20) antibody,etoposide and cyclophosphamide followed by autologous transplantation,for high-risk relapsed or refractory non-hodgkin lymphoma

Radiation is the most effective treatment for localized lymphoma, but treatment of multifocal disease is limited by toxicity. Radioimmunotherapy (RIT) delivers tumoricidal radiation to multifocal sites, further augmenting response by dose-escalation. This phase II trial evaluated high-dose RIT and chemotherapy prior to autologous stem-cell transplant (ASCT) for high-risk, relapsed or refractory (R/R) B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). The primary endpoint was progression free survival (PFS). Secondary endpoints were overall survival (OS), toxicity, and tolerability. Patients age < 60 years with R/R NHL expressing CD20 were eligible. Mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) patients could proceed to transplant in first remission. Patients received I-131-tositumomab delivered at ≤25Gy to critical normal organs, followed by etoposide, cyclophosphamide and ASCT. A group of 107 patients were treated including aggressive lymphoma (N = 29), indolent lymphoma (N = 45), and MCL (N = 33). After a median follow-up of 10.1 years, the 10-year PFS for the aggressive, indolent, and MCL groups were 62%, 64%, 43% respectively. The 10-year OS for the aggressive, indolent, and MCL groups were 61%, 71%, 48% respectively. Toxicities were similar to standard conditioning regimens and non-relapse mortality at 100 days was 2.8%. Late myeloid malignancies were seen in 6% of patients. High-dose I-131-tositumomab, etoposide and cyclophosphamide followed by ASCT appeared feasible, safe, and effective in treating NHL, with estimated PFS at 10-years of 43%-64%. In light of novel cellular therapies for R/R NHL, high-dose RIT-containing regimens yield comparable efficacy and safety and could be prospectively compared.     

Estimating Acute Viral Hepatitis Infections From Nationally Reported Cases

Objectives. Because only a fraction of patients with acute viral hepatitis A, B, and C are reported through national surveillance to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, we estimated the true numbers.Methods. We applied a simple probabilistic model to estimate the fraction of patients with acute hepatitis A, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C who would have been symptomatic, would have sought health care tests, and would have been reported to health officials in 2011.Results. For hepatitis A, the frequencies of symptoms (85%), care seeking (88%), and reporting (69%) yielded an estimate of 2730 infections (2.0 infections per reported case). For hepatitis B, the frequencies of symptoms (39%), care seeking (88%), and reporting (45%) indicated 18 730 infections (6.5 infections per reported case). For hepatitis C, the frequency of symptoms among injection drug users (13%) and those infected otherwise (48%), proportion seeking care (88%), and percentage reported (53%) indicated 17 100 infections (12.3 infections per reported case).Conclusions. These adjustment factors will allow state and local health authorities to estimate acute hepatitis infections locally and plan prevention activities accordingly.Infection with hepatitis A, B, and C (HAV, HBV, and HCV, respectively) remains a substantial health problem in the United States.1–3 Chronic HBV4 and HCV5 infections currently affect more than 4 million US residents and now account for more deaths than does HIV/AIDS.6 New HAV and HBV infections have been prevented by the adoption of universal infant vaccination in the United States, but acute infections continue to occur and cause substantial morbidity and mortality.7 Monitoring case patients with acute HAV, HBV, and HCV is important for several reasons. Identifying individuals with acute infections serves to describe modes of transmission and to detect and control outbreaks. Furthermore, prevention interventions of various types—for example, vaccinating susceptible persons, getting injection drug users into treatment programs, treating persons who are chronically infected to prevent secondary transmission, and preventing complications—require ongoing surveillance and analysis of individuals with acute infections of these 3 viruses.Only a fraction of individuals with acute infections of these 3 viruses are reported eventually to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States. Barriers to ascertaining and reporting hepatitis infections are many, often reflecting the ability of and resources allotted to the local and state health jurisdictions monitoring them. Natural barriers include the following: most individuals with acute infections of any of the 3 viruses are asymptomatic, only some of those with symptoms seek medical care and testing, and even of those diagnosed, some fraction is not reported or enumerated. Complete reporting of, at a minimum, symptomatic case patients is essential because only by identifying them can interventions be implemented to limit disease in the community. Outbreaks are most often detected from the identification of symptomatic case patients.Currently, the CDC estimates incident HAV, HBV, and HCV infections using reports of case patients to develop adjustments through 3 simple probabilistic multiplier models; however, the methods used to develop the estimating factors (multipliers) are outdated and have never been well described or publicly available. Thus, our goal was to update estimates of the number of individuals with acute infections using 2011 reports of case patients.