1.Bacteraemia in Haematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant Recipients in a Single Tertiary Referral Centre
NURUL IMAN P ; RAMLIZA R ; WAN FARIZA WJ ; SHAMSUL AZHAR S ; NOR AZIMAH I ; FADILAH SAW
Medicine and Health 2019;14(2):60-76
Bacteraemia is a common and one of the serious complications in haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). To date, there are no published data on antibiotic resistance and clinical outcome among HSCT recipients in Malaysia. The aims of the present study was to analyse the prevalence, antibiotic resistance and clinical outcome of bacteraemia in HSCT recipients within 100 days following transplantation. We retrospectively analysed the prevalence, antibiotic resistance pattern and mortality rate of early bacteraemia among HSCT recipients in a single centre over a 5-year period (2013-2017). Thirty patients of 85 HSCT recipients developed bacteraemia with 40 positive cultures resulting in prevalence of 47% (40/85). Gram negative bacteria (GNB) accounted for 60.5% of total isolates. Enterobacteriaceae and Coagulase negative Staphylococcus (CoNS) were the commonest pathogens isolated. GNB showed a high resistance rate to ciprofloxacin. Only 30% of recipients responded to first line empirical antibiotics for febrile neutropenia (FN). The mortality rate was 13.3% (4/30), of which 50% was attributed to multi-drug resistance (MDR) Acinetobacter and 25% to extended spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) Enterobacteriaceae. Bacteraemia is a frequent and life-threatening early complication among HSCT recipients with MDR GNB being the commonest cause of mortality. The high rate of resistance to ciprofloxacin and failure of the first line empirical antibiotics to treat FN calls for a thorough evaluation of the current antibiotic prophylaxis and empirical treatment protocols. These findings have important clinical implications regarding the use and selection of both prophylactic and empiric antibiotic regimens to treat FN.
2.Real-time quantifi cation for BCR-ABL transcripts in chronic myeloid leukaemia patients in UKMMC, Malaysia
FL Wong ; NH Hamidah ; AA Hawa ; AN Nurul ; CF Leong ; SAW Fadilah ; O Ainoon
The Malaysian Journal of Pathology 2011;33(2):107-112
Molecular pathogenesis of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is well established and molecular
monitoring for patients with CML has become an important practice in the management of patients
on imatinib therapy. In the present study, we report the use of RQ-PCR method for detection of
BCR-ABL fusion gene for our CML cases. We performed a two-step RQ-PCR on bone marrow
aspirates or peripheral blood of 37 CML patients. Quantitative expression of BCR-ABL fusion
gene was carried out relative to the expression of a housekeeping gene as endogenous control to
compensate for uneven cell numbers, RNA quality, or variations in reverse transcription effi ciencies.
Twenty-four of these patients were pre-treated with hydroxyurea or alpha interferon prior to the
imatinib therapy. Their BCR-ABL fusion gene levels were monitored for 18 months. All samples
processed were evaluable. The PCR amplifi cation effi ciency of the ABL gene is 90.5% (0.2158)
and the BCR-ABL gene, 93.4% (0.1573).