PANIC DISORDER, ANXIETY, AND CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASES

Different data indicate that psychological and/or emotional disorders may play an important role in the natural history of heart diseases. Although the major evidence is that related to depression, epidemiological data would indicate that anxiety and panic disorders are highly represented in cardiac patient, thus influencing mortality and morbidity. The diagnosis of panic disorder in patients with chest pain is crucial to a correct therapeutic approach, as well as to reduce the risks and costs of inappropriate treatments. Anxiety and panic may accelerate different direct and indirect processes involved in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular diseases: lifestyle risk factors, arterial hypertension, myocardial perfusion, autonomic nervous system or hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis, platelet activation, and inflammation processes. Panic disorder seems to correlate particularly with sudden death: this suggests that it may be considered one of the main inducers of life-threatening arrhythmias, rather than to be linked to the development and progression of coronary atherosclerosis. Beyond hard outcomes, panic disorders produce negative effects on both global adjustment and life quality that may impair the course of the cardiac diseases. Interestingly, specific antipanic and anxiolytic agents seem to be particularly effective upon life quality. In any case, adequate controlled clinical trials are necessary in order to confirm the possibility of cardiovascular risk reduction by means of anxiety and panic disorder treatment

Exploring the links between cancer and placenta development

The development of metastatic cancer is a multistage process, which often requires decades to complete. Impairments in DNA damage control and DNA repair in cancer cell precursors generate genetically heterogeneous cell populations. However, despite heterogeneity most solid cancers have stereotypical behaviours, including invasiveness and suppression of immune responses that can be unleashed with immunotherapy targeting lymphocyte checkpoints. The mechanisms leading to the acquisition of stereotypical properties remain poorly understood. Reactivation of embryonic development processes in cells with unstable genomes might contribute to tumour expansion and metastasis formation. However, it is unclear whether these events are linked to immune response modulation. Tumours and embryos have non-self-components and need to avoid immune responses in their microenvironment. In mammalian embryos, neo-antigens are of paternal origin, while in tumour cells DNA mismatch repair and replication defects generate them. Inactivation of the maternal immune response towards the embryo, which occurs at the placental-maternal interface, is key to ensuring embryonic development. This regulation is accomplished by the trophoblast, which mimics several malignant cell features, including the ability to invade normal tissues and to avoid host immune responses, often adopting the same cancer immunoediting strategies. A better understanding as to whether and how genotoxic stress promotes cancer development through reactivation of programmes occurring during early stages of mammalian placentation could help to clarify resistance to drugs targeting immune checkpoint and DNA damage responses and to develop new therapeutic strategies to eradicate cancer

RICOVERI PER EFFETTI INDESIDERATI DA SOVRADOSAGGIO DI FARMACI PRESSO UN\u2019UNIT\uc0 OPERATIVA CARDIOLOGICA NEL PERIODO 2011-2013

Introduzione: Le statistiche dei casi di ricovero ospedaliero per effetti indesiderati da sovradosaggio farmacologico sono utili per valutare l\u2019incidenza di tale fenomeno nel mondo reale. Un sovradosaggio farmacologico pu\uf2 avvenire come conseguenza di un\u2019insufficiente o inadeguata comunicazione tra medico e paziente, per autoprescrizione o erronea assunzione di dosaggi superiori a quelli necessari, per erronea assunzione di due farmaci identici come molecola ma con nome commerciale diverso o per effetti collaterali imprevisti. Materiali e metodi: Sono state esaminate, retrospettivamente, le cartelle cliniche relative a tutti i ricoveri avvenuti presso l\u2019Unit\ue0 Operativa di Cardiologia del P.O. S. Antonio Abate di Trapani (ASP 9 - Sicilia) nel triennio compreso tra gennaio 2011 e dicembre 2013. Sono state ricercate le ospedalizzazioni avvenute per effetti indesiderati da sovradosaggio di farmaci appartenenti a varie classi quali digitalici, ACE-inibitori, betabloccanti e antiaritmici, in particolare l\u2019amiodarone. Risultati: Nel triennio in oggetto, su un totale di 7269 ospedalizzazioni, quelli per effetti indesiderati da sovradosaggio farmacologico sono stati 76 (1.05% del totale dei ricoveri). I pazienti ricoverati per tale motivo, 33 di sesso maschile e 43 di sesso femminile, avevano un\u2019et\ue0 compresa tra 62 e 90 anni. La Figura1 mostra le percentuali relative ai singoli farmaci interessati, secondo cui la principale causa di ricovero ospedaliero per effetti indesiderati da sovradosaggio farmacologico \ue8 attribuibile all\u2019amiodarone, antiaritmico di classe III, per i noti effetti collaterali a carico della tiroide e degli occhi. Segue la digitale, che ha causato nei pazienti bradiaritmie e in alcuni casi vere e proprie intossicazioni e, in percentuali minori, gli ACE-inibitori, cause di ipotensione e i betabloccanti, causa di bradicardia e ipotensione. Per tutti i casi l\u2019intervento mirava alla reversione della sintomatologia e alla momentanea sospensione dell\u2019assunzione. Per nessuno dei casi monitorati si \ue8 proposto il ricovero in terapia intensiva. Discussione: I ricoveri ospedalieri per effetti indesiderati da sovradosaggio farmacologico sono ancora un problema abbastanza diffuso nel mondo reale. Gli operatori sanitari, tra cui Medici e Farmacisti, dovrebbero ulteriormente mirare a una corretta informazione dei pazienti e dei loro familiari, in particolare al momento della dimissione, come prezioso e fondamentale strumento di prevenzione di questi danni iatrogenici che, a prescindere dei costi evitabili per il Sistema Sanitario Nazionale, possono comportare, se non adeguatamente trattati, rischi e gravi conseguenze per la salute

miRiadne : a web tool for consistent integration of miRNA nomenclature

The miRBase is the official miRNA repository which keeps the annotation updated on newly discovered miRNAs: it is also used as a reference for the design of miRNA profiling platforms. Nomenclature ambiguities generated by loosely updated platforms and design errors lead to incompatibilities among platforms, even from the same vendor. Published miRNA lists are thus generated with different profiling platforms that refer to diverse and not updated annotations. This greatly compromises searches, comparisons and analyses that rely on miRNA names only without taking into account the mature sequences, which is particularly critic when such analyses are carried over automatically. In this paper we introduce miRiadne, a web tool to harmonize miRNA nomenclature, which takes into account the original miRBase versions from 10 up to 21, and annotations of 40 common profiling platforms from nine brands that we manually curated. miRiadne uses the miRNA mature sequence to link miRBase versions and/or platforms to prevent nomenclature ambiguities. miRiadne was designed to simplify and support biologists and bioinformaticians in re-annotating their own miRNA lists and/or data sets. As Ariadne helped Theseus in escaping the mythological maze, miRiadne will help the miRNA researcher in escaping the nomenclature maze. miRiadne is freely accessible from the URL http://www.miriadne.org

Role of Mediterranean diet in the development and recurrence of meningiomas: a narrative review

: Several studies through the years have proven how an unhealthy nutrition, physical inactivity, sedentary lifestyle, obesity, and smoking represent relevant risk factors in cancer genesis. This study aims to provide an overview about the relationship between meningiomas and food assumption in the Mediterranean diet and whether it can be useful in meningioma prevention or it, somehow, can prevent their recurrence. The authors performed a wide literature search in PubMed and Scopus databases investigating the presence of a correlation between Mediterranean diet and meningiomas. The following MeSH and free text terms were used: "Meningiomas" AND "Diet" and "Brain tumors" AND "diet." Databases' search yielded a total of 749 articles. After duplicate removal, an abstract screening according to the eligibility criteria has been performed and 40 articles were selected. Thirty-one articles were excluded because they do not meet the inclusion criteria. Finally, a total of 9 articles were included in this review. It is widely established the key and protective role that a healthy lifestyle and a balanced diet can have against tumorigenesis. Nevertheless, studies focusing exclusively on the Mediterranean diet are still lacking. Thus, multicentric and/or prospective, randomized studies are mandatory to better assess and determine the impact of food assumptions in meningioma involvement

HCV E1E2-MF59 vaccine in chronic hepatitis C patients treated with PEG-IFNα2a and Ribavirin: a randomized controlled trial.

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) vaccines may be able to increase viral clearance in combination with antiviral therapy. We analysed viral dynamics and HCV-specific immune response during retreatment for experienced patients in a phase Ib study with E1E2MF59 vaccine. Seventy-eight genotype 1a/1b patients [relapsers (30), partial responders (16) and nonresponders (32) to interferon-(IFN)/ribavirin-(RBV)] were randomly assigned to vaccine (V:23), Peg-IFNα2a-180-ug/qw and ribavirin 1000-1200-mg/qd for 48 weeks (P/R:25), or their combination (P/R + V:30). Vaccine (100 μg/0.5 mL) was administered intramuscularly at week 0-4-8-12-24-28-32-36. Neutralizing of binding (NOB) antibodies and lymphocyte proliferation assay (LPA) for E1E2-specific-CD4 + T cells were performed at week 0-12-16-48. Viral kinetics were analysed up to week 16. The vaccine was safe, and a sustained virological response (SVR) was achieved in 4 P/R + V and 2 P/R patients. Higher SVR rates were observed in prior relapsers (P/R + V = 27.3%; P/R = 12.5%). Higher NOB titres and LPA indexes were found at week 12 and 16 in P/R + V as compared to P/R patients (P = 0.023 and 0.025, P = 0.019 and <0.001, respectively). Among the 22 patients with the strongest direct antiviral effects of IFN (ε ≥ 0.800), those treated with P/R + V (10) reached lower HCV-RNA levels (P = 0.026) at week 16. HCV E1E2MF59 vaccine in combination with Peg-IFNα2a + RBV was safe and elicited E1E2 neutralizing antibodies and specific CD4 + T cell proliferation. Upon early response to IFN, vaccinations were associated with an enhanced second phase viral load decline. These results prompt phase II trials in combination with new antiviral therapies

De novo transcriptome profiling of highly purified human lymphocytes primary cells

To help better understand the role of long noncoding RNAs in the human immune system, we recently generated a comprehensive RNA-seq data set using 63 RNA samples from 13 subsets of T (CD4(+)\u2009naive, CD4(+)\u2009TH1, CD4(+)\u2009TH2, CD4(+)\u2009TH17, CD4(+)\u2009Treg, CD4(+)\u2009TCM, CD4(+)\u2009TEM, CD8(+)\u2009TCM, CD8(+)\u2009TEM, CD8(+)\u2009naive) and B (B naive, B memory, B CD5(+)) lymphocytes. There were five biological replicates for each subset except for CD8(+)\u2009TCM and B CD5(+)\u2009populations that included 4 replicates. RNA-Seq data were generated by an Illumina HiScanSQ sequencer using the TruSeq v3 Cluster kit. 2.192 billion of paired-ends reads, 2 7100\u2009bp, were sequenced and after filtering a total of about 1.7 billion reads were mapped. Using different de novo transcriptome reconstruction techniques over 500 previously unknown lincRNAs were identified. The current data set could be exploited to drive the functional characterization of lincRNAs, identify novel genes and regulatory networks associated with specific cells subsets of the human immune system