Tommaso e Matteo Biazaci da Busca, a cura di Anna De Floriani e Stefano Manavella, Cuneo

Il volume costituisce la prima monografia interamente dedicata ai fratelli Biazaci, pittori provenienti da Busca (Cn) che lavorarono durante la seconda metà del Quattrocento e gli inizi del Cinquecento, tra Piemonte sud-occidentale e Liguria di ponente, realizzando numerosi cicli di affreschi e anche opere su tavola. Pur segnati da retaggi tardogotici, i Biazaci si aprirono a suggestioni più aggiornate, grazie all'influsso dell'arte nizzarda e provenzale e in seguito anche della corrente rinascimentale lombarda conosciuta in Liguria, grazie ad artisti come Giovanni Mazone e Carlo Braccesco. Il loro linguaggio, equilibrato e di felice vena narrativa, è funzionale alla comunicazione di chiari messaggi didascalici, spesso legati all'ars bene vivendi e alla spiritualità francescana. Frutto di un lavoro pluriennale e della collaborazione tra studiosi piemontesi e liguri, il libro ricostruisce la riscoperta critica dei Biazaci, l'ambiente storico-culturale e artistico in cui si formarono e operarono, delinea un percorso della loro attività, analizza le iconografie, le fonti letterarie di riferimento e le tecniche esecutive dei loro dipinti. A ciascuna opera assegnabile ai pittori è riservata una scheda di approfondimento e non mancano un capitolo sulle attribuzioni non condivise e una ricchissima bibliografia. Il volume ha ricevuto nell'agosto 2013 il Premio Anthia - Libro Ligure dell'Anno 2013 ed è stato presentato in diverse località della provincia di Cuneo, a partire da Busca (nel dicembre 2012), Brossasco, Casteldelfino, Saluzzo, Dronero, Acceglio, Cuneo, e inoltre ad Albenga, presso la sede ingauna dell'Istituto Internazionale di Studi Liguri (Palazzo Peloso Cepolla) e a Torino, presso il Circolo dei Lettori

La cattedrale di S. Lorenzo a Genova, "Criteri di trascrizione delle iscrizioni", "Segni diacritici" e "Schede iscrizioni"

INTRODUCTION: The aim of this study was to investigate possible differences in the organisation of the motor cortex in people with knee osteoarthritis (OA) and whether there is an association between cortical organisation and accuracy of a motor task. METHODS: fMRI data were collected while 11 participants with moderate/severe right knee OA (6 male, 69 ± 6 (mean ± SD) years) and seven asymptomatic controls (5 male, 64 ± 6 years) performed three visually guided, variable force, force matching motor tasks involving isolated isometric muscle contractions of: 1) quadriceps (knee), 2) tibialis anterior (ankle) and, 3) finger/thumb flexor (hand) muscles. fMRI data were used to map the loci of peak activation in the motor cortex during the three tasks and to assess whether there were differences in the organisation of the motor cortex between the groups for the three motor tasks. Root mean square of the difference between target and generated forces during muscle contraction quantified task accuracy. RESULTS: A 4.1 mm anterior shift in the representation of the knee (p = 0.03) and swap of the relative position of the knee and ankle representations in the motor cortex (p = 0.003) were found in people with knee OA. Poorer performance of the knee task was associated with more anterior placement of motor cortex loci in people with (p = 0.05) and without (p = 0.02) knee OA. CONCLUSIONS: Differences in the organisation of the motor cortex in knee OA was demonstrated in relation to performance of knee and ankle motor tasks and was related to quality of performance of the knee motor task. These results highlight the possible mechanistic link between cortical changes and modified motor behavior in people with knee OA

Adjuvant anastrozole versus exemestane versus letrozole, upfront or after 2 years of tamoxifen, in endocrine-sensitive breast cancer (FATA-GIM3): a randomised, phase 3 trial

Background: Uncertainty exists about the optimal schedule of adjuvant treatment of breast cancer with aromatase inhibitors and, to our knowledge, no trial has directly compared the three aromatase inhibitors anastrozole, exemestane, and letrozole. We investigated the schedule and type of aromatase inhibitors to be used as adjuvant treatment for hormone receptor-positive early breast cancer. Methods: FATA-GIM3 is a multicentre, open-label, randomised, phase 3 trial of six different treatments in postmenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive early breast cancer. Eligible patients had histologically confirmed invasive hormone receptor-positive breast cancer that had been completely removed by surgery, any pathological tumour size, and axillary nodal status. Key exclusion criteria were hormone replacement therapy, recurrent or metastatic disease, previous treatment with tamoxifen, and another malignancy in the previous 10 years. Patients were randomly assigned in an equal ratio to one of six treatment groups: oral anastrozole (1 mg per day), exemestane (25 mg per day), or letrozole (2·5 mg per day) tablets upfront for 5 years (upfront strategy) or oral tamoxifen (20 mg per day) for 2 years followed by oral administration of one of the three aromatase inhibitors for 3 years (switch strategy). Randomisation was done by a computerised minimisation procedure stratified for oestrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and HER2 status; previous chemotherapy; and pathological nodal status. Neither the patients nor the physicians were masked to treatment allocation. The primary endpoint was disease-free survival. The minimum cutoff to declare superiority of the upfront strategy over the switch strategy was assumed to be a 2% difference in disease-free survival at 5 years. Primary efficacy analyses were done by intention to treat; safety analyses included all patients for whom at least one safety case report form had been completed. Follow-up is ongoing. This trial is registered with the European Clinical Trials Database, number 2006-004018-42, and ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT00541086. Findings: Between March 9, 2007, and July 31, 2012, 3697 patients were enrolled into the study. After a median follow-up of 60 months (IQR 46–72), 401 disease-free survival events were reported, including 211 (11%) of 1850 patients allocated to the switch strategy and 190 (10%) of 1847 patients allocated to upfront treatment. 5-year disease-free survival was 88·5% (95% CI 86·7–90·0) with the switch strategy and 89·8% (88·2–91·2) with upfront treatment (hazard ratio 0·89, 95% CI 0·73–1·08; p=0·23). 5-year disease-free survival was 90·0% (95% CI 87·9–91·7) with anastrozole (124 events), 88·0% (85·8–89·9) with exemestane (148 events), and 89·4% (87·3 to 91·1) with letrozole (129 events; p=0·24). No unexpected serious adverse reactions or treatment-related deaths occurred. Musculoskeletal side-effects were the most frequent grade 3–4 events, reported in 130 (7%) of 1761 patients who received the switch strategy and 128 (7%) of 1766 patients who received upfront treatment. Grade 1 musculoskeletal events were more frequent with the upfront schedule than with the switch schedule (924 [52%] of 1766 patients vs 745 [42%] of 1761 patients). All other grade 3–4 adverse events occurred in less than 2% of patients in either group. Interpretation: 5 years of treatment with aromatase inhibitors was not superior to 2 years of tamoxifen followed by 3 years of aromatase inhibitors. None of the three aromatase inhibitors was superior to the others in terms of efficacy. Therefore, patient preference, tolerability, and financial constraints should be considered when deciding the optimal treatment approach in this setting. Funding: Italian Drug Agency