Papers by Caterina Mammina
Annali di igiene: medicina preventiva e di comunità
Increased frequency of identification of Salmonella enterica serotype Enteritidis as a causative ... more Increased frequency of identification of Salmonella enterica serotype Enteritidis as a causative agent of sporadic and epidemic cases of infection in humans, along with isolation in many parts of the world of strains belonging in a large proportion to a few phage types, has made phage typing alone inadequate for epidemiological investigations. In southern Italy the epidemic increase in isolation of S. enterica serotype Enteritidis that has been observed since 1990 has been associated in approximately 80% of isolates with phage type 4 (PT-4), in agreement with the epidemiological observations from other European countries. We have applied polymerase chain reaction (PCR) ribotyping in association with phage typing to a sample of non-outbreak strains and to all the outbreak strains sent for identification and typing to the Southern Italy Centre for Enterobacterial Pathogens between 1980 and 1994 from hospital and public health laboratories. This technique identified 15 distinct profiles among the 405 strains examined. Whereas a single profile (PCR ribotype a1) appeared to be closely related to PT-8, and to characterize a high percentage of the strains circulating during the early non-epidemic years (1980-1985), 11 patterns were recognizable within PT-4, and 5 within PT-1. Some of these apparently emerged after 1990. This subdivision enabled attribution of the epidemic circulation of PT-4 to multiple clones of S. enterica serotype Enteritidis.
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Antimicrobial agents and chemotherapy, Jan 2, 2015
A carbapenem-resistant sequence type (ST) 512 KPC-3-producing Klebsiella pneumoniae strain showin... more A carbapenem-resistant sequence type (ST) 512 KPC-3-producing Klebsiella pneumoniae strain showing a novel variant plasmid content was isolated in Palermo, Italy, in 2014. ST512 is a worldwide successful clone associated with the spread of blaKPC genes located on the IncFIIk pKpQIL plasmid. In our ST512 strain, the blaKPC-3 was exceptionally located on an IncX3 plasmid whose complete sequence was determined. Two copies of the Tn44011a:blaKPC-3 transposon due to a intramolecular transposition events were detected in the plasmid.
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Italian Journal of Public Health
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Infection and Drug Resistance, 2015
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Public Health Nutrition, 2015
The present work is aimed at meta-analysing validity studies of FFQ for adolescents, to investiga... more The present work is aimed at meta-analysing validity studies of FFQ for adolescents, to investigate their overall accuracy and variables that can affect it negatively. A meta-analysis of sixteen original articles was performed within the ASSO Project (Adolescents and Surveillance System in the Obesity prevention). The articles assessed the validity of FFQ for adolescents, compared with food records or 24 h recalls, with regard to energy and nutrient intakes. Pearson's or Spearman's correlation coefficients, means/standard deviations, kappa agreement, percentiles and mean differences/limits of agreement (Bland-Altman method) were extracted. Pooled estimates were calculated and heterogeneity tested for correlation coefficients and means/standard deviations. A subgroup analysis assessed variables influencing FFQ accuracy. An overall fair/high correlation between FFQ and reference method was found; a good agreement, measured through the intake mean comparison for all nutrients except sugar, carotene and K, was observed. Kappa values showed fair/moderate agreement; an overall good ability to rank adolescents according to energy and nutrient intakes was evidenced by data of percentiles; absolute validity was not confirmed by mean differences/limits of agreement. Interviewer administration mode, consumption interval of the previous year/6 months and high number of food items are major contributors to heterogeneity and thus can reduce FFQ accuracy. The meta-analysis shows that FFQ are accurate tools for collecting data and could be used for ranking adolescents in terms of energy and nutrient intakes. It suggests how the design and the validation of a new FFQ should be addressed.
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The Journal of sports medicine and physical fitness
Background. The protective effect of proper food styles and intentional physical activity (PA) on... more Background. The protective effect of proper food styles and intentional physical activity (PA) on different non-communicable diseases has been widely reported in children and adolescents. The collection of data on adolescent lifestyles, however, is often fragmentary, and comparability is not feasible due to a lack of standardization of the methodology. Aims. ASSO Project (Adolescents Surveillance System and Obesity prevention) is a 3-year project funded by the Italian Ministry of Health. The main objective is to develop an innovative web-based system for a standardized collection of data from schools on food habits, PA/fitness and anthropometry. The project is structured in 6 work-packages, involving Systematic Literature Reviews, development of questionnaires and tests, software/website programming, school sampling, training sessions, system testing, data analysis, project evaluation and dissemination activities. The aim of the present report is to analyse the scientific literature...
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The Journal of sports medicine and physical fitness
Objectives. The aim of the present paper is to analyse the association between some early obesity... more Objectives. The aim of the present paper is to analyse the association between some early obesity risk factors and children's overweight, in order to plan measures for obesity prevention. Study design. A sample of 315 schoolchildren aged 11-12 and their parents were selected for the survey in six high schools of Palermo, a town in Southern Italy. Methods. Anthropometric measures of schoolchildren were collected and a retrospective study was performed using questionnaires administered to their parents. For the statistical analysis nonparametric tests and multiple logistic regression models were used. Results. Children's overweight and obesity were positively associated with male gender (odds ratio (OR) 1.69, confidence interval (CI) 1.06-2.68), overweight at six years (OR 2.19, CI 1.23-3.91) and mother's overweight (OR 1.84, CI 1.12-3.03). Working mothers are less overweight than housewives (OR 0.50, CI 0.29-0.86). Low maternal education and being housewife increase the r...
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Journal of Medical Microbiology, 2015
New Delhi metallo-β-lactamase-1 (NDM-1), an acquired class B carbapenemase, is a significant clin... more New Delhi metallo-β-lactamase-1 (NDM-1), an acquired class B carbapenemase, is a significant clinical threat owing to the extended hydrolysis of β-lactams including carbapenems. Here, to the best of our knowledge we describe for the first time in Turkey two NDM-1-producing Acinetobacter baumannii isolates recovered from intensive care unit patients. The presence of blaNDM-1 was detected by PCR and confirmed by sequencing. The clonal relationship was assessed by PFGE and multilocus sequence typing. Both isolates were positive for blaNDM-1 and were attributed with the sequence type 85. One isolate was from a Syrian refugee, whereas the second was from a patient who had never travelled outside Turkey. Our findings confirmed that the rapid spread of NDM-1-producing Gram-negative organisms could become a major challenge for the treatment and control of healthcare-associated infections in our geographical area. They suggest also that NDM-1-producing strains and/or their genetic determinants are probably being imported from Syria to neighbouring countries.
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International Journal of Occupational Medicine and Environmental Health, 2015
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Journal of Food Process Engineering, 2015
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The new microbiologica, 2009
The aim of this study was to evaluate the ability to resist disinfection of a polymicrobial assoc... more The aim of this study was to evaluate the ability to resist disinfection of a polymicrobial association contaminating the surface of dental impressions obtained with two different elastomers: a polyether (Impregum) and an addition-polymerized silicone (Elite). Impressions were contaminated with a mixture of three biofilm-forming microorganisms (Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Candida albicans) and disinfected immediately after contamination, or after microbial layers were allowed to develop during a six-hour storage. Two commercial disinfectants were tested: MD 520 containing 0.5% glutaraldehyde and Sterigum Powder without glutaraldehyde. Residual contamination was recovered by mechanical rinsing immediately after disinfection and after a six-hour storage of disinfected impressions, and assessed by colony counting. Both disinfectants tested were shown to be effective in reducing the microbial presence on the impression materials, achieving at least a 102 reduction ...
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Epidemiologia e prevenzione
To describe the epidemiology of tuberculosis (TB) in Sicily in the years 2010-2013. Observational... more To describe the epidemiology of tuberculosis (TB) in Sicily in the years 2010-2013. Observational study of the TB notifications in the years 2010-2013 by analyzing the Sistema informative delle malattie infettive (SIMI) database and carrying out a molecular epidemiological analysis by spoligo- e 24-loci mycobacterial interspersed repetitive units-variable number of tandem repeats (MIRU-VNTR) typing of the Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC) isolates identified in Palermo, Italy, in the years 2012-2013. In the four-year period under study 876 TB cases were notified in Sicily with a mean annual notification rate of 4.4 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. The proportion of TB cases in the foreign-born individuals was increasing and higher than the proportion in Italian-born in the period 2010-2013. The median age of foreign-born patients was significantly lower than the Italian-born (30.5 vs. 51.2 years, p <0,001). Moreover, the distribution by age class was also significantly diff...
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Iranian journal of microbiology, 2013
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Microbiologica, 1991
A strain of HIV 1 (PA 40), isolated from a patient with AIDS, showed a size variation of its exte... more A strain of HIV 1 (PA 40), isolated from a patient with AIDS, showed a size variation of its external glycoprotein. This glycoprotein had an estimated molecular weight of 105 Kd and differed from that of both HIV 1 IIIb and HIV 2 Rod strains. The protein was derived from a bigger (140 Kd) precursor, detectable only in the infected cells and could incorporate labeled glucose in its prosthetic portion. The change in size of the external glycoprotein may be the result of envelope sequence variations since the unglycosylated form of the envelope precursor of PA 40 strain, detected in tunicamycin treated cells, was smaller than that of the HIV 1 IIIb strain. The different size of the external glycoprotein is a further aspect of the variability of the biological characteristic of HIV 1 strains and might be correlated with the emergence of more virulent variants which arose during the progression of the clinical disease.
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Journal of Biological Research-Thessaloniki, 2015
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Papers by Caterina Mammina