Iosif Marincu

Victor Babes University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Timisoara | UMFT · Department of Infectious Diseases

Background SARS-CoV-2 is a new virus that first emerged in Wuhan, China in December 2019. The virus quickly spread throughout the countries, transforming the initial outbreak into a global pandemic. Lopinavir-ritonavir is an antiretroviral protease inhibitor combination drug that was proposed for the treatment of COVID-19 in the early phases of the...

Background This study explores the longitudinal psychosocial impact of Long-COVID syndrome, also known as Post-COVID-19 syndrome, characterized by enduring symptoms after coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infection, over the years 2020, 2021, and 2022. It aimed to examine the variations in depression, anxiety, and quality of life among Post-COVID-19 p...

Background: In the wake of the global COVID-19 pandemic, understanding its prolonged impact on vulnerable populations has become a critical area of investigation. This study aimed to elucidate the distinctive post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC) and liver injury in Romania’s elderly population, hypothesizing unique demographic, clinic...

This longitudinal study investigates the psychosocial effects of long-COVID Syndrome, a domain still not extensively researched. It specifically evaluates the quality of life, coping mechanisms, anxiety and depression levels in COVID-19 survivors, differentiating between those with and without long-COVID Syndrome. Conducted at the Victor Babes Hosp...

Introduction Combinations of protease inhibitors such as lopinavir and darunavir with ritonavir have been repurposed as treatments for COVID-19. Lopinavir-ritonavir (LPV/r) and darunavir-ritonavir (DRV/r) showed in vitro efficacy against COVID-19, but the results are conflicting for human studies. Thus, our aim was to compare the efficacy of LPV/r...

Background and Objectives: With an increasing number of severe COVID-19 cases presenting with secondary fungal infections, this study aimed to determine the prevalence of fungal co-infections in severe COVID-19 patients across the six waves, identify the most common fungal pathogens associated with severe COVID-19, and explore any potential links b...

Sphingomonas paucimobilis is a gram-negative bacillus that is widely distributed in the environment but rarely causes infections in humans. Meningitis caused by S. paucimobilis is an extremely rare clinical entity with very few reported cases in the literature. The clinical presentation and management of S. paucimobilis meningitis are not well esta...

Bacterial infection can occur in patients hospitalized with SARS-CoV-2 in various conditions, resulting in poorer outcomes, such as a higher death rate. This current systematic review was conducted in order to assess the efficiency of multiplex PCR in detecting bacterial infections in hospitalized COVID-19 patients, as well as to analyze the most c...

Background and Objectives: Multidrug-resistant microorganisms have made treating bacterial infections challenging. Resistance to antibiotics is expected to overcome efforts to produce new, effective antibacterial medication that is lifesaving in many situations. Infective endocarditis (IE) is a life-threatening infection that affects 5–15 per 100,0...

Infective endocarditis (IE) is a bacterial infection with high morbidity and mortality rates, particularly among the elderly. This systematic review was conducted to determine the clinical characteristics of IE in older adults and the risk factors that could lead to adverse outcomes. The research employed three databases (PubMed, Wiley, and Web of...

Background and Objectives: The extent of SARS-CoV-2 infection among a population may be assessed by the presence of serum SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, which indicates previous exposure. The aim of this study was to determine the seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the adult population from Western Romania. Materials and Methods: Samples of 2443 con...

Measles causes in vaccinated children, with some exceptions, a mild disease, while the unvaccinated can suffer complications that result in serious consequences and even death. Although the introduction of the measles vaccine has reduced the number of cases and the viral spread, the current downward vaccination trend has resulted in the resurgence...

Measles is a highly infectious and sometimes deadly illness that is preventable with vaccination. The present research aims to analyze the most recent measles epidemic from Romania that occurred in a population with a falling desire to receive immunizations, by detailing the clinical picture and biological profile of hospitalized patients. A second...

Infectious diseases are associated with a high morbidity and mortality rate among pediatric cancer patients undergoing treatment or receiving a transplant. Neutropenia represents a potentially fatal complication of cancer treatment and is associated with a high risk of developing bacterial infections. Although febrile neutropenia (FN) can affect bo...

Infective endocarditis (IE) is increasingly prevalent in the elderly, particularly due to the rising frequency of invasive procedures and intracardiac devices placed on these individuals. Several investigations have highlighted the unique clinical and echocardiographic characteristics, the microorganisms implicated, and the prognosis of IE in the e...

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection induces a significant inflammatory response that are amplified by persistent stress. The pathophysiology of mental illnesses is explored in terms of inflammatory processes. Thus, anxious, depressed, or psychotic episodes may occur as a result of metabolic and immunological i...

The Pap test plays a significant role worldwide in the early diagnosis of and high curability rates for cervical cancer. However, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic necessitated the use of multiple drastic measures to stop the spread of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus, limiting women’s access to...

Being one of the most common malignancies in young women, cervical cancer is frequently successfully screened around the world. Early detection enables for an important number of curative options that allow for more than 90% of patients to survive more than three years without cancer relapse. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic put tremendous pres...

The multiplex PCR is a powerful and efficient tool that was widely used during the COVID-19 pandemic to diagnose SARS-CoV-2 infections and that has applications for bacterial identification, as well as determining bacterial resistance to antibiotics. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the usability of multiplex PCR, especially in patients sel...

Background Infective endocarditis (IE) is a life-threatening disease associated with high mortality and morbidity worldwide. We sought to determine how socio-economic factors might influence its epidemiology, clinical presentation, investigation and management, and outcome, in a large international multi-centre registry. Methods The EurObservation...

Listeria monocytogenes (LM), one of the most important foodborne pathogens, is an intracellular bacterium found in food and the environment. It causes listeriosis, a potentially severe disease, particularly for pregnant women, the elderly and immunocom-promised patients, but in rare cases, it can cause invasive disease in immunocompetent adults and...

Purpose: High mortality and a limited performance of valvular surgery are typical features of infective endocarditis (IE) in octogenarians, even though surgical treatment is a major determinant of a successful outcome in IE. Methods: Data from the prospective multicentre ESC EORP EURO-ENDO registry were used to assess the prognostic role of valv...

Although laboratory data show that antibody responses to COVID-19 immunization give superior neutralization of certain circulating variations to spontaneous infection, few real-world epidemiological studies demonstrate the advantage of vaccination for previously infected individuals. This paper summarizes the outcomes of a case–control study conduc...

Background and Objectives: High rates of infection with Toxoplasma gondii were found in psychiatric patients globally. In this study, we assessed for the first time the prevalence of T. gondii infection in psychiatric patients and healthy individuals with no known psychiatric disorders in Western Romania. Materials and Methods: The presence of spec...

Patients with cirrhosis are known to have multiple comorbidities and impaired organ system functioning due to alterations caused by chronic liver failure. In the past two years, since the COVID-19 pandemic started, several studies have described the affinity of SARS-CoV-2 with the liver and biliary cells. Considering hepatitis C as a significant in...

Management of cryptococcal infections among patients suffering from acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) represents a medical challenge. This retrospective study aims to describe the disease management and outcomes among 24 AIDS patients who suffered from Cryptococcus neoformans meningitis. The parameters evaluated from our patients’ database...

Background and Objectives: Comprehension regarding immunity to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is limited, and the durability of immune responses after vaccination is currently unknown. Several studies have reported on the antibody response in fully vaccinated individuals with a limited follow-up of the participants, i....

Background and Objectives: As maternal deaths associated with the SARS-CoV-2 infection remain at several times greater than the general population, significant factors that might contribute to the higher mortality and morbidity rate are the psychological impact of the disease and pregnancy itself. Therefore, the current study’s main objective was t...

Background and objectives: this study assessed variations in the blood parameters of patients with hematological disorders infected with HCV throughout a 12-week interferon-free treatment regimen. Materials and methods: We followed a total of 344 patients suffering from chronic hepatitis C, infected with the 1b genotype and concomitant hematologica...

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to analyze epidemiological data concerning foodborne botulism in Western Romania over the last decade. Botulism, the toxin formed by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, results in a neuroparalytic disorder capable of severe clinical progression that begins in the cranial nerves and progressively descends....

Background and Objectives: The ongoing pandemic proved to be a tremendous challenge to all economic layers, healthcare, and people safety. As more than one year elapsed since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, a multitude of medical studies involving the SARS-CoV-2 virus helped researchers and medical practitioners in understanding the effects...

In this paper, we aim at understanding the broad spectrum of factors influencing the survival of infected patients and the correlations between these factors to create a predictive probabilistic score for surviving the COVID-19 disease. Initially, 510 hospital admissions were counted in the study, out of which 310 patients did not survive. A predic...

Background and Objectives: The COVID-19 pandemic is an ongoing public health emergency. Patients with chronic diseases are at greater risk for complications and poor outcomes. The objective of this study was to investigate the liver function abnormalities and clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19 and chronic hepatitis C. Materials and Methods...

Background and Objectives: On 24 March 2020, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the approval of convalescent plasma therapy for critically ill patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) as an emergency investigational new drug This pilot study from Romania aimed to determine if convalescen...

Introduction: Overlap syndrome (OVS) is defined by the coexistence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in the same patient. This condition is associated with increased mortality and a higher risk of respiratory exacerbation, compared to patients with COPD or OSA alone. Dedicated studies are required to...

Background: We sought to investigate whether long-term continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) treatment in patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and resistant hypertension (RHTN) could attenuate the cardiovascular disease risk by lowering their body-mass index (BMI). Methods: This was a long-term observational study of RHTN patients di...

Background and objectives: At present, Romania and parts of the European Union are facing an increasingly challenging public health problem consisting of nosocomial Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI), mostly in the elderly. Relapse cases have become more frequent, which present higher morbidity and mortality rates than the initial CDI infecti...

Patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection represent a risk group for developing spleen abscesses. The paper presents a short review and case illustration, describing the characteristics and underling treatment of HIV-infected patients with infectious comorbidities. There are few reports in literature of multiple spleen abscesses wi...

Background Infective endocarditis (IE) is a life threatening disease associated with high mortality and morbidity worldwide. We sought to determine how socio-economic factors may influence variations in epidemiology, clinical presentation, investigation and management (and their consequence upon clinical outcomes) in a large international multi-cen...

Background : Fungal infections are a health issue paradoxically fuelled by the developments in medical care. Objectives: Our study is an investigation on the correlation between the infection site and the genotypes of Candida albicans strains isolated from Romanian patients. Methods : A total number of 301 isolates from different clinical sites wer...

The study presents the echinocandin susceptibility profile of a multi-centre collection of pathogenic yeast isolates from Romanian tertiary hospitals. The 562 isolates were identified using ID32C strips, MALDI-TOF MS and DNA sequencing. Minimal inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of caspofungin (CAS), micafungin (MCA), and anidulafungin (ANI) were ass...

The aim of this study was to develop a method for identification and quantification of diazepam and its major metabolite, desmethyldiazepam in plasma samples in psychiatric patients. Liquid - liquid extraction (LLE) procedure was applied in order to simplify the pre-analytical phase followed by gas chromatography - mass spectrometry (GC-MS) detecti...

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Table of contents A1 The outcome of patients with recurrent versus non-recurrent pneumococcal meningitis in a tertiary health-care hospital in Bucharest Cristian-Mihail Niculae, Eliza Manea, Raluca Jipa, Simona Merisor, Ruxandra Moroti, Serban Benea, Adriana Hristea A2 Influence of bacteriophages on sessile Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria...

Statistical analysis of anthropometric differences between COPD stages 1 and 2.

The influence of anxiety on the behavior of smoking in patients with community-acquired pneumonia I.Marincu1, S.Mihaicuta1, Nicoleta Bertici1, Daliborca Vlad2, Tudor Anca3, Livius Tirnea1 1Department of Infectious Diseases, Pneumology Epidemiology and Parasitology, ,,Victor Babes” University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Timisoara, Romania 2Departments...

Background: Affective disturbances can influence the attitude toward smoking in patients with various diseases. This study aims to assess the level of anxiety and its influence on smoking behavior in a group of adult patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). Methods: The study included 64 smokers with CAP admitted in the Clinic of Infectiou...

O1 HIV-1 diversity in Bulgaria (current molecular epidemiological picture) Ivailo Alexiev, Reneta Dimitrova, Anna Gancheva, Asya Kostadinova, Mariyana Stoycheva, Daniela Nikolova, Ivaylo Elenkov O2 Knowledge, attitudes and practices of the general population on HIV/AIDS, hepatitis B and C in Romania Cătălin Tilișcan, Mioara Predescu, Bogdan Păunesc...

This study is about a 43-year-old woman with anterior abdominal wall actinomycosis that appeared after abdominal trauma by dropping. The histopathological examination revealed an organized parietal hematoma with Actinomyces israelii colonies. The evolution was favorable under the treatment with Penicillin G. 5000000 International Units administered...

Background: In the context of immunosuppression associated with other risk factors, HIV-infected patients develop various respiratory comorbidities. This study aims to assess the impact of active smoking and the frequnecy of respiratory infections in adult HIV-infected. Methods: The authors have retrospectively analyzed the hospital records of 38 s...

Background: Active smoking may contribute to an increased incidence of respiratory comorbidities in HIV-infected patients. This study aims to evaluate the prevalence of smoking in HIV-infected patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP). Methods: The authors retrospectively analyzed 68 HIVinfected patients with CAP monitored in the Clinic of I...

Background: The treatment with pegylated-Interferon (peg-IFN) in patients with chronic hepatitis C induces neutropenia, associated with multiple infections. This study aims to evaluate the frequency of respiratory infections and its relations with neutropenia in patients treated with peg-IFN. Methods: The Authors included in the study 64 patients w...

Background: Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) is more frequent in the elderly and is associated with important economic implications because of repetitive and prolonged hospitalizations, due to both cardiovascular and noncardiovascular causes. Purpose: To identify the causes, as well as the clinical and biological markers, tha...

Purpose: Bronchial asthma (BA) is a chronic inflammatory disorder of the airways, featuring variable and often reversible airflow limitations. An accurate assessment of BA control is difficult in practice, especially in the elderly, requiring the assessment of several clinical and paraclinical parameters that are influenced not only by asthma, but...

This study presents a correlation between flow-mediated dilatation (FMD), total cholesterol (TC), and lowdensity lipoproteins (LDL) in patients with dyslipidemia that are not treated with any hypolipemiant medication (DYS-STAT) vs. dyslipidemic patients treated with atorvastatin (DYS+STAT) in order to assess the effect of atorvastatin on FMD. The r...

Purpose. The purpose of this prospective study was to identify factors associated with prolonged hospitalization (PH) , readmissions and death in elderly patients presenting heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFREF). Patients and methods: all consecutive patients aged ≥ 65 years, discharged with a diagnosis of acute new-onset heart fai...

The purpose of this prospective study was to identify factors associated with prolonged hospitalization, readmission, and death in elderly patients presenting heart failure with reduced ejection fraction. All consecutive patients aged ≥65 years discharged with a diagnosis of acute new-onset heart failure and a left ventricular ejection fraction (LV...

Istvan Gyalai-Korpos,1,2 Oana Ancusa,1,2 Tiberiu Dragomir,1,2 Mirela Cleopatra Tomescu,1,2 Iosif Marincu1,3 1University of Medicine and Pharmacy, 2Cardiology Department, City Hospital, 3Department of Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases, Victor Babes University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Timisoara, Romania Purpose: The purpose of this prospective st...

Purpose: The purpose of this prospective study was to identify factors associated with prolonged hospitalization, readmission, and death in elderly patients presenting heart failure with reduced ejection fraction. Patients and methods: All consecutive patients aged 65 years discharged with a diagnosis of acute new-onset heart failure and a left ve...

Green nails, also known as chloronychia or green nail syndrome, are characterized by green discoloration of the nail plate (greenish-yellow, greenish-brown, greenish-black), proximal chronic non-tender paronychia, and distolateral onycholysis. The cause is Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection of the nail plate in persons whose hands are constantly expo...

Curcuma longa Linnaeus and Zingiber officinale Roscoe are two main representatives of Zingiberaceae family studied for a wide range of therapeutic properties, including: antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-angiogenic, antibacterial, analgesic, immunomodulatory, proapoptotic, anti-human immunodeficiency virus properties and anticancer effects. This...

With all benefits of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) therapy in Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)-infected patients, oral candidiasis (OC) remains a significant health problem in these patients. The aim of the study was to determine the impact of smoking on oral candidiasis in HIV patients. We retrospectively analysed a group of 84 HI...

Purpose: This is the first multi centre study regarding yeast infections in Romania. The aim was to determine the aetiological spectrum and the susceptibility pattern to fluconazole, voriconazole and the novel compound MXP 4509. Methods: The 551 isolates were identified using routine laboratory methods, MALDI TOF MS and DNA sequence analysis. Susce...

Background: Tuberculosis (TB ) is one of the most common opportunistic infections in patients with HIV/AIDS. The aim of the study was to assess the epidemiological and clinical features of tuberculosis in HIV-infected patients using two algorithms. Materials and Methods: HIV infection was confirmed by Western blot. CD4 counts were determined by flo...

Background: Echocardiographic assessed left atrial (LA) strain parameters are associated with atrial fibrillation (AF). Our aim was to determine if changes in left atrial peak systolic longitudinal strain (LAS) after electric conversion (CV) of atri-al fibrillation to sinus rhythm is associated with AF recurrence in hypertensive patients. Methods a...

Background: Increased levels of asymmetric dimethyl arginine (ADMA) in hypertensive patients promote endothelial dysfunction and atherosclerosis, while statins improve endothelial function. Aim: This study is aiming to investigate the influence of rosuvastatin therapy on plasma ADMA levels, flow-mediated forearm vasodilatation (FMD) and carotid IMT...

Background: Increased levels of asymmetric dimethyl arginine (ADMA) in hypertensive patients promote endothelial dysfunction and atherosclero-sis, while statins improve endothelial function. Aim: This study is aiming to investigate the in-fluence of rosuvastatin therapy on plasma ADMA levels, flow-mediated forearm vasodilatation (FMD) and carotid I...

Background: Hypertension and left ventricu-lar hypertrophy (LVH) are important contributors to left ventricular diastolic dysfunction (DD), left atrial remodeling and atrial fibrillation. Aims: The principal objective is comparing left atrial (LA) remodeling and left ventricular DD in subgroups of patients with or without paroxysmal atrial fibrilla...