Novella Cesta
@web.uniroma2.it
University of Rome Tor Vergata
RESEARCH, TEACHING, or OTHER INTERESTS
Infectious Diseases, Microbiology
Scopus Publications
Scopus Publications
Caterina Ferretti, Noemi Violeta Poma, Mariano Bernardo, Laura Rindi, Novella Cesta, Arianna Tavanti, Carlo Tascini, and Mariagrazia Di Luca
Elsevier BV
Luca Tomisti, Francesca Angelotti, Mirco Lenzi, Francesco Amadori, Giovanni Sarteschi, Anna Porcu, Anna-Lisa Capria, Gloria Bertacca, Stefania Lombardi, Guido Bianchini,et al.
MDPI AG
The use of antivirals, corticosteroids, and IL-6 inhibitors has been recommended by the WHO to treat COVID-19. CP has also been considered for severe and critical cases. Clinical trials on CP have shown contradictory results, but an increasing number of patients, including immunocompromised ones, have shown benefits from this treatment. We reported two clinical cases of patients with prolonged COVID-19 infection and B-cell depletion who showed rapid clinical and virological recovery after the administration of CP. The first patient in this study was a 73-year-old female with a history of follicular non-Hodgkin lymphoma previously treated with bendamustine followed by maintenance therapy with rituximab. The second patient was a 68-year-old male with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, bipolar disorder, alcoholic liver disease, and a history of mantellar non-Hodgkin lymphoma treated with rituximab and radiotherapy. After the administration of CP, both patients showed a resolution of symptoms, improvement of their clinical conditions, and a negative result of the nasopharyngeal swab test. The administration of CP might be effective in resolving symptoms and improving clinical and virological outcomes in patients with B-cell depletion and prolonged SARS-CoV2 infections.
Novella Cesta, Marco Pini, Tiziana Mulas, Alessandro Materazzi, Ernesto Ippolito, Jeroen Wagemans, Mzia Kutateladze, Carla Fontana, Loredana Sarmati, Arianna Tavanti,et al.
Oxford University Press (OUP)
AbstractBackgroundProsthetic joint infection (PJI) caused by Pseudomonas aeruginosa represents a severe complication in orthopedic surgery. We report the case of a patient with chronic PJI from P. aeruginosa successfully treated with personalized phage therapy (PT) in combination with meropenem.MethodsA 62-year-old woman was affected by a chronic right hip prosthesis infection caused by P. aeruginosa since 2016 . The patient was treated with phage Pa53 (I day 10 mL q8h, then 5 mL q8h via joint drainage for 2 weeks) in association with meropenem (2gr q12h iv) after a surgical procedure. A 2-year clinical follow up was performed. An in vitro bactericidal assay of the phage alone and in combination with meropenem against a 24-hour-old biofilm of bacterial isolate was also carried out.ResultsNo severe adverse events were observed during PT. Two years after suspension, there were no clinical signs of infection relapse, and a marked leukocyte scan showed no pathological uptake areas. In vitro studies showed that the minimum biofilm eradicating concentration of meropenem was 8 µg/mL. No biofilm eradication was observed at 24 hours incubation with phages alone (108 plaque-forming units [PFU]/mL). However, the addition of meropenem at suberadicating concentration (1 µg/mL) to phages at lower titer (103 PFU/mL) resulted in a synergistic eradication after 24 hours of incubation.ConclusionsPersonalized PT, in combination with meropenem, was found to be safe and effective in eradicating P. aeruginosa infection. These data encourage the development of personalized clinical studies aimed at evaluating the efficacy of PT as an adjunct to antibiotic therapy for chronic persistent infections.
Alessandro Materazzi, Daria Bottai, Claudia Campobasso, Ann-Brit Klatt, Novella Cesta, Margherita De Masi, Andrej Trampuz, Arianna Tavanti, and Mariagrazia Di Luca
MDPI AG
Staphylococcus aureus implant-associated infections are difficult to treat because of the ability of bacteria to form biofilm on medical devices. Here, the efficacy of Sb-1 to control or prevent S. aureus colonization on medical foreign bodies was investigated in a Galleria mellonella larval infection model. For colonization control assays, sterile K-wires were implanted into larva prolegs. After 2 days, larvae were infected with methicillin-resistant S. aureus ATCC 43300 and incubated at 37 °C for a further 2 days, when treatments with either daptomycin (4 mg/kg), Sb-1 (107 PFUs) or a combination of them (3 x/day) were started. For biofilm prevention assays, larvae were pre-treated with either vancomycin (10 mg/kg) or Sb-1 (107 PFUs) before the S. aureus infection. In both experimental settings, K-wires were explanted for colony counting two days after treatment. In comparison to the untreated control, more than a 4 log10 CFU and 1 log10 CFU reduction was observed on K-wires recovered from larvae treated with the Sb-1/daptomycin combination and with their singular administration, respectively. Moreover, pre-infection treatment with Sb-1 was found to prevent K-wire colonization, similarly to vancomycin. Taken together, the obtained results demonstrated the strong potential of the Sb-1 antibiotic combinatory administration or the Sb-1 pretreatment to control or prevent S. aureus-associated implant infections.
N. Cesta, L. Foroghi Biland, B. Neri, M. Mossa, L. Campogiani, F. Caldara, M. Zordan, C. Petruzziello, G. Monteleone, C. Fontana,et al.
Elsevier BV
Claudio Liguori, Mariangela Pierantozzi, Matteo Spanetta, Loredana Sarmati, Novella Cesta, Marco Iannetta, Josuel Ora, Grazia Genga Mina, Ermanno Puxeddu, Ottavia Balbi,et al.
Elsevier BV
Marco Iannetta, Novella Cesta, Christof Stingone, Vincenzo Malagnino, Elisabetta Teti, Pietro Vitale, Giuseppe De Simone, Benedetta Rossi, Lorenzo Ansaldo, Mirko Compagno,et al.
Elsevier BV
Claudio Liguori, Matteo Spanetta, Loredana Sarmati, Novella Cesta, Gabriella Pezzuto, Grazia Genga Mina, Paola Rogliani, and Mariangela Pierantozzi
Elsevier BV
Claudio Liguori, Mariangela Pierantozzi, Matteo Spanetta, Loredana Sarmati, Novella Cesta, Marco Iannetta, Josuel Ora, Grazia Genga Mina, Ermanno Puxeddu, Ottavia Balbi,et al.
Elsevier BV
Vincenzo Malagnino, Carlotta Cerva, Gaetano Maffongelli, Elisabetta Teti, Luca Foroghi Biland, Novella Cesta, Margherita De Masi, Christof Stingone, Daniele Armenia, Valentina Svicher,et al.
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
AbstractThe morbidity and mortality rates of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-hepatitis B virus (HBV) coinfection are higher than that of either infection alone. Outcomes and the virological response to antiretrovirals (combination antiretroviral therapy, cART) were explored in HIV/HBV subjects in a cohort of Italian patients treated with cART. A single-center retrospective analysis of patients enrolled from January 2007 to June 2018 was conducted by grouping patients by HBV status and recording baseline viro-immunological features, the history of virological failure, the efficacy of cART in achieving HIV viral undetectability, viral blip detection and viral rebound on follow up. Among 231 enrolled patients, 10 (4.3%) were HBV surface (s) antigen (HBsAg)-positive, 85 (36.8%) were positive for antibodies to HBV c antigen (HBcAb) and with or without antibodies to HBV s antigen (HBsAb), and 136 were (58.9%) HBV-negative. At baseline, HBcAb/HBsAb+/−-positive patients had lower CD4+ cell counts and CD4+ nadirs (188 cell/mmc, IQR 78–334, p = 0.02 and 176 cell/mmc, IQR 52–284, p = 0,001, respectively). There were significantly higher numbers of AIDS and non-AIDS events in the HBcAb+/HBsAb+/−-positive subjects than in the HBV-negative patients (41.1% vs 19.1%, p = 0.002 and 56.5% vs 28.7%, respectively, p ≤ 0.0001); additionally, HIV viremia undetectability was achieved a significantly longer time after cART was begun in the former than in the latter population (6 vs 4 months, p = 0.0001). Cox multivariable analysis confirmed that after starting cART, an HBcAb+/HBsAb+/−-positive status is a risk factor for a lower odds of achieving virological success and a higher risk of experiencing virological rebound (AHR 0.63, CI 95% 0.46–0.87, p = 0.004 and AHR 2.52, CI 95% 1.09–5.80, p = 0.030). HBcAb-positive status resulted in a delay in achieving HIV < 50 copies/mL and the appearance of viral rebound in course of cART, hence it is related to a poor control of HIV infection in a population of coinfected patients.
Lavinia Fabeni, Giulia Berno, Joseph Fokam, Ada Bertoli, Claudia Alteri, Caterina Gori, Federica Forbici, Desiré Takou, Alessandra Vergori, Mauro Zaccarelli,et al.
American Society for Microbiology
ABSTRACT HIV-1 non-B subtypes/circulating recombinant forms (CRFs) are increasing worldwide. Since subtype identification can be clinically relevant, we assessed the added value in HIV-1 subtyping using updated molecular phylogeny (Mphy) and the performance of routinely used automated tools. Updated Mphy (2015 updated reference sequences), used as a gold standard, was performed to subtype 13,116 HIV-1 protease/reverse transcriptase sequences and then compared with previous Mphy (reference sequences until 2014) and with COMET, REGA, SCUEAL, and Stanford subtyping tools. Updated Mphy classified subtype B as the most prevalent (73.4%), followed by CRF02_AG (7.9%), C (4.6%), F1 (3.4%), A1 (2.2%), G (1.6%), CRF12_BF (1.2%), and other subtypes (5.7%). A 2.3% proportion of sequences were reassigned as different subtypes or CRFs because of misclassification by previous Mphy. Overall, the tool most concordant with updated Mphy was Stanford-v8.1 (95.4%), followed by COMET (93.8%), REGA-v3 (92.5%), Stanford-old (91.1%), and SCUEAL (85.9%). All the tools had a high sensitivity (≥98.0%) and specificity (≥95.7%) for subtype B. Regarding non-B subtypes, Stanford-v8.1 was the best tool for C, D, and F subtypes and for CRFs 01, 02, 06, 11, and 36 (sensitivity, ≥92.6%; specificity, ≥99.1%). A1 and G subtypes were better classified by COMET (92.3%) and REGA-v3 (98.6%), respectively. Our findings confirm Mphy as the gold standard for accurate HIV-1 subtyping, although Stanford-v8.1, occasionally combined with COMET or REGA-v3, represents an effective subtyping approach in clinical settings. Periodic updating of HIV-1 reference sequences is fundamental to improving subtype characterization in the context of an effective epidemiological surveillance of non-B strains.