Listeria abdominal endograft infection miming pseudoaneurysm treated with in-situ aortic reconstruction: a case report

We report the case of a 72-year old man previously treated with an aortic endograft for an abdominal aortic aneurysm. After 3 years the patient developed a sepsis. Imaging and blood exams detected an endograft infection related to Listeria monocytogenes. Patients underwent endograft removal and in-situ aortic reconstruction with a cryopreserved allograft. A continuous antibacterial therapy has been established. One-month follow-up revealed the absence of clinically relevant infection with patency of the graft and absence of biochemical inflammatory markers

An Application of Modular Design in the Refitting of a Hybrid-electric Propelled Training Ship

Nowadays specific ships are used to train students as sailors. As historical vessels are conveniently employed to this aim, the average age of these ships is usually high. In order to amortize operating and maintenance costs, the training ships\u2019 ownership (except for naval ones) is shared among multiple entities and schools. Moreover, generally these vessels are used in coastal navigation. The consequent operational profile imposes the need to rearrange the ship internal spaces according to the shipowner who will use it. Considering all these reasons, a modular design approach can be adopted in the refitting process, while reverse engineering techniques and integrated design tools should be used for the reconstruction when the original technical documentation is not available. In this context, hybrid-electric propulsion systems can be proposed as effective to enable the Zero Emission Mode, thus reducing the vessel\u2019s environmental impact during the training. By doing this, three goals are achieved to extend the ship operational life: ease of rearrangement of the internal spaces for different uses, reduction of operating/maintenance costs and eco-sustainability in coastal navigation. In this paper, after a description about modular design and hybrid electric technologies, the refitting project of the M/N \u201cUmberto d\u2019Ancona\u201d is discussed. The latter is the training ship of \u201cTomaso di Savoia Duke of Genoa\u201d, the nautical institute in Trieste, Italy

Increased risk of second malignancy in pancreatic intraductal papillary mucinous tumors: Review of the literature.

AIM: To analyze the available evidence about the risk of extrapancreatic malignancies and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma associated to pancreatic intraductal papillary mucinous tumors (IPMNs). METHODS: A systematic search of literature was undertaken using MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane and Web-of-Science libraries. No limitations for year of publication were considered; preference was given to English papers. All references in selected articles were further screened for additional publications. Both clinical series and Literature reviews were selected. For all eligible studies, a standard data extraction form was filled in and the following data were extracted: study design, number of patients, prevalence of pancreatic cancer and extrapancreatic malignancies in IPMN patients and control groups, if available. RESULTS: A total of 805 abstracts were selected and read; 25 articles were considered pertinent and 17 were chosen for the present systematic review. Eleven monocentric series, 1 multicentric series, 1 case-control study, 1 population-based study and 3 case report were included. A total of 2881 patients were globally analyzed as study group, and the incidence of pancreatic cancer and/or extrapancreatic malignancies ranged from 5% to 52%, with a mean of 28.71%. When a control group was analyzed (6 papers), the same incidence was as low as 9.4%. CONCLUSION: The available Literature is unanimous in claiming IPMNs to be strongly associated with pancreatic and extrapancreatic malignancies. The consequences in IPMNs management are herein discussed

A rare case of mycobacterial pseudoaneurysm of the superficial femoral artery

Extrapulmonary localization of tuberculosis accounts for about 15-20% of cases. Several cases of Mycobacterium tuberculosis with vascular involvement have been described, but only few cases for limb vessels

Mid and Far IR properties of late-type galaxies in the Coma and A1367 clusters: ISOCAM and ISOPHOT observations

We present Mid (MIR) and Far (FIR) Infrared observations of 18 spiral/irregular galaxies belonging to the Coma and A1367 clusters, carried out with the CAM and PHOT instruments on board the ISO satellite. Complementary photometry from the UV to the Near Infrared (NIR) together with Hα imaging, HI and ^(12)CO line measurements allow us to study the relationships between the IR emission and the star formation properties of these galaxies. Most of the resolved galaxies show extended MIR emission throughout their disks even where no Hα emission is present. This suggests that the Aromatic carriers can be excited by the general interstellar radiation field (ISRF), i.e. by visible photons. Only close to HII regions the UV photons are the principal sources of Aromatic carrier excitation. However, when the UV radiation field becomes intense enough these carriers can be destroyed. The average integrated 15/6.75µ_m ratio of the observed galaxies is ∼1, i.e. the typical value for the photodissociation regions (PDRs). This suggests that, despite the high star formation rate (SFR) and the very luminous HII regions of these galaxies, their integrated MIR emission is dominated by PDR-like regions rather than HII-like regions. A cold dust component with average temperature ∼22 K exists in most of the target galaxies, probably arising from big dust grains (BGs) in thermal equilibrium with the ISRF. The contribution to the BGs heating from the ionizing stars decreases with increasing wavelength. A warmer dust component whose emission dominates the spectrum between 20 and 100µ_m is likely to exist. This is probably due to both Very Small Grains (VSGs) and warm BGs emission. The dust to gas ratio of the target galaxies is comparable to that of the solar neighborhood. There is a weak trend between the dust total mass and both the atomic and molecular gas content. The MIR and FIR properties of the analyzed galaxies do not seem to be affected by the environment despite the fact that most of the targets are interacting with the Intra-Cluster-Medium