The Impact of Lifestyle Interventions in High-Risk Early Breast Cancer Patients: A Modeling Approach from a Single Institution Experience

none21noA healthy lifestyle plays a strategic role in the prevention of BC. The aim of our prospective study is to evaluate the effects of a lifestyle interventions program based on special exercise and nutrition education on weight, psycho-physical well-being, blood lipid and hormonal profile among BC patients who underwent primary surgery. From January 2014 to March 2017, a multidisciplinary group of oncologists, dieticians, physiatrists and an exercise specialist evaluated 98 adult BC female patients at baseline and at different time points. The patients had at least one of the following risk factors: BMI ≥ 25 Kg/m2, high testosterone levels, high serum insulin levels or diagnosis of MS. Statistically significant differences are shown in terms of BMI variation with the lifestyle interventions program, as well as in waist circumference and blood glucose, insulin and testosterone levels. Moreover, a statistically significant difference was reported in variations of total Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) score, in the anxiety HADS score and improvement in joint pain. Our results suggested that promoting a healthy lifestyle in clinical practice reduces risk factors involved in BC recurrence and ensures psycho-physical well-being.openMirco Pistelli, Valentina Natalucci, Laura Scortichini, Veronica Agostinelli, Edoardo Lenci, Sonia Crocetti, Filippo Merloni, Lucia Bastianelli, Marina Taus, Daniele Fumelli, Gloria Giulietti, Claudia Cola, Marianna Capecci, Roberta Serrani, Maria Gabriella Ceravolo, Maurizio Ricci, Albano Nicolai, Elena Barbieri, Giulia Nicolai, Zelmira Ballatore, Agnese Savini and Rossana BerardiPistelli, Mirco; Natalucci, Valentina; Scortichini, Laura; Agostinelli, Veronica; Lenci, Edoardo; Crocetti, Sonia; Merloni, Filippo; Bastianelli, Lucia; Taus, Marina; Fumelli, Daniele; Giulietti, Gloria; Cola, Claudia; Capecci, Marianna; Serrani, Roberta; Gabriella Ceravolo, Maria; Ricci, Maurizio; Nicolai, Albano; Barbieri, Elena; Nicolai, Giulia; Ballatore, Zelmira; Savini and Rossana Berardi, Agnes

Platelets and hepatocellular cancer: Bridging the bench to the clinics

Growing interest is recently being focused on the role played by the platelets in favoring hepatocellular cancer (HCC) growth and dissemination. The present review reports in detail both the experimental and clinical evidence published on this topic. Several growth factors and angiogenic molecules specifically secreted by platelets are directly connected with tumor progression and neo-angiogenesis. Among them, we can list the platelet-derived growth factor, the vascular endothelial growth factor, the endothelial growth factor, and serotonin. Platelets are also involved in tumor spread, favoring endothelium permeabilization and tumor cells' extravasation and survival in the bloodstream. From the bench to the clinics, all of these aspects were also investigated in clinical series, showing an evident correlation between platelet count and size of HCC, tumor biological behavior, metastatic spread, and overall survival rates. Moreover, a better understanding of the mechanisms involved in the platelet-tumor axis represents a paramount aspect for optimizing both current tumor treatment and development of new therapeutic strategies against HCC

AI is a viable alternative to high throughput screening: a 318-target study

: High throughput screening (HTS) is routinely used to identify bioactive small molecules. This requires physical compounds, which limits coverage of accessible chemical space. Computational approaches combined with vast on-demand chemical libraries can access far greater chemical space, provided that the predictive accuracy is sufficient to identify useful molecules. Through the largest and most diverse virtual HTS campaign reported to date, comprising 318 individual projects, we demonstrate that our AtomNet® convolutional neural network successfully finds novel hits across every major therapeutic area and protein class. We address historical limitations of computational screening by demonstrating success for target proteins without known binders, high-quality X-ray crystal structures, or manual cherry-picking of compounds. We show that the molecules selected by the AtomNet® model are novel drug-like scaffolds rather than minor modifications to known bioactive compounds. Our empirical results suggest that computational methods can substantially replace HTS as the first step of small-molecule drug discovery

EVALITA Evaluation of NLP and Speech Tools for Italian - December 17th, 2020

Welcome to EVALITA 2020! EVALITA is the evaluation campaign of Natural Language Processing and Speech Tools for Italian. EVALITA is an initiative of the Italian Association for Computational Linguistics (AILC, http://www.ai-lc.it) and it is endorsed by the Italian Association for Artificial Intelligence (AIxIA, http://www.aixia.it) and the Italian Association for Speech Sciences (AISV, http://www.aisv.it)

Electrolyte disorders in cancer patients: a systematic review

Electrolyte disorders are very common complications in cancer patients. They might be associated to a worsening outcome, influencing quality of life, possibility to receive anticancer drugs, and conditioning survival. In fact, they might provoke important morbidity, with dysfunction of multiple organs and rarely causing life-threatening conditions. Moreover, recent studies showed that they might worsen cancer patients’ outcome, while a prompt correction seems to have a positive impact. Furthermore, there is evidence of a correlation between electrolyte alterations and poorer performance status, delays in therapy commencement and continuation, and negative treatment outcomes. These alterations usually involve sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium serum levels. Several causes might contribute to electrolyte disorders in cancer patients: cancer effects, such as paraneoplastic syndrome of inappropriate antidiuresis and tumor lysis syndrome; anti-cancer therapies; and other concomitant clinical conditions or treatments. However, the origin of the electrolyte disorder is often multifactorial, thus identifying and correcting the causes is not always feasible. Furthermore, they are often not recognized or not considered in clinical practice, worsening these alterations and patient condition. An improvement of knowledge about the physiological mechanisms underlying electrolyte disorders is necessary to strengthen their identification and set up a prompt, adequate, and effective treatment. The aim of this systematic review is to provide an analysis of the pathophysiological mechanisms of electrolyte abnormalities in cancer patients to facilitate their identification, management, and therapy to improve patient outcome

Characterization of the cyclic-plastic behaviour of flexible structures by applying the Chaboche model

During seismic events, the gravity loads may cause a reduction of the lateral stiffness of structures; inelastic deformations combined with horizontal loads (P-Δ effect) can bring to a state of dynamic instability that obviously influences building safety. Especially for flexible structures, the P-Δ effect amplifies structural deformations and resultants stresses, and thus may represent a source of sideway collapse. Since this type of collapse is the result of progressive accumulation of plastic deformation on structural components, the specific objective of this works is to study this effect on a three floor metallic frame (made of aluminium alloy). A non-linear finite element (FE) model of the frame has been developed to study the dynamic non-linear behaviour of the structure, and compare it with the experimental results obtained from a scaled model of the real structure. The FE model, where a simple isotropic hardening behaviour was assumed for the material, was not able to reproduce the real behaviour of the structure. Rather, the correct description of the cyclic plastic behaviour of the material was essential for the numerical analysis of the structure. The characterization of the non-linear behaviour of the material was made by cyclic tension–compression tests on material specimen, from which the coefficients of Chaboche's model were properly calibrated. In this way, the finite element model of the structure provided results in optimum agreement with the experimental ones, and was able to predict the lateral collapse very well

Characterization of the cyclic-plastic behaviour of flexible structures by applying the Chaboche model

During seismic events, the gravity loads may cause a reduction of the lateral stiffness of structures; inelastic deformations combined with horizontal loads (P-Δ effect) can bring to a state of dynamic instability that obviously influences building safety. Especially for flexible structures, the P-Δ effect amplifies structural deformations and resultants stresses, and thus may represent a source of sideway collapse. Since this type of collapse is the result of progressive accumulation of plastic deformation on structural components, the specific objective of this works is to study this effect on a three floor metallic frame (made of aluminium alloy). A non-linear finite element (FE) model of the frame has been developed to study the dynamic non-linear behaviour of the structure, and compare it with the experimental results obtained from a scaled model of the real structure. The FE model, where a simple isotropic hardening behaviour was assumed for the material, was not able to reproduce the real behaviour of the structure. Rather, the correct description of the cyclic plastic behaviour of the material was essential for the numerical analysis of the structure. The characterization of the non-linear behaviour of the material was made by cyclic tension–compression tests on material specimen, from which the coefficients of Chaboche's model were properly calibrated. In this way, the finite element model of the structure provided results in optimum agreement with the experimental ones, and was able to predict the lateral collapse very well

Old but gold: the role of drug combinations in improving response to immune check-point inhibitors in thoracic malignancies beyond NSCLC

none8siThe introduction of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) in non-oncogene addicted non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has revolutionized the treatment scenario and led to a meaningful improvement in patient prognosis. Disappointingly, the success of ICI therapy in NSCLC has not been fully replicated in other thoracic malignancies as small cell lung cancer (SCLC), malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM), and thymic epithelial tumors (TETs), due to the peculiar biological features of these disease and to the difficulties in the conduction of well-designed, biomarker-driven clinical trials. Therefore, combination strategies of ICIs plus conventional therapies (either chemotherapy, alternative ICIs or targeted agents) have been implemented. Although first approvals of ICI therapy have been recently granted in SCLC and MPM (in combination with chemotherapy and different ICIs), results remain somewhat modest and limited to a small proportion of patients. This work reviews the trial results of ICI therapy in mesothelioma, SCLC, and TETs and discusses the potential of combining ICIs with old drugsrestrictedCantini, Luca; Pecci, Federica; Merloni, Filippo; Lanese, Andrea; Lenci, Edoardo; Paoloni, Francesco; Aerts, Joachim G.J.V.; Berardi, RossanaCantini, Luca; Pecci, Federica; Merloni, Filippo; Lanese, Andrea; Lenci, Edoardo; Paoloni, Francesco; Aerts, Joachim G. J. V.; Berardi, Rossan

Tumor burden as possible biomarker of outcome in advanced NSCLC patients treated with immunotherapy: a single center, retrospective, real-world analysis

none11Aim: The role of tumor burden (TB) for patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) receiving immunotherapy is still unknown. The aim of this analysis was to analyze the prognostic value of TB in a real-world sample of advanced NSCLC patients. Methods: Sixty-five consecutive patients with advanced NSCLC treated with immunotherapy as first or second line therapy were retrospectively analyzed between August 2015 and February 2018. TB was recorded at baseline considering sites and number of metastases, thoracic vs. extrathoracic disease, measurable disease (MD) vs. not-MD (NMD) and evaluating dimensional aspects as maximum lesion diameter (cut-off = 6.3 cm), sum of the 5 major lesions diameters (cut-off = 14.3 cm), and number of sites of metastases (cut-off > 4). All cut-offs were calculated by receiver operating characteristic curves. Median overall survival (OS) was estimated using Kaplan-Meier method. A Cox regression model was carried out for univariate and multivariate analyses. Results: Median age was 70 years and most patients (86.2%) had a good performance status (PS-Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group 4 were negative prognostic factors (P < 0.0001). Conclusions: This study underlines the negative prognostic impact of specific metastatic sites, presence of NMD and extrathoracic disease in advanced NSCLC patients treated with immunotherapy. However, TB does not appear to affect the outcome of these patients.restrictedEdoardo Lenci; Giulia Marcantognini; Valeria Cognigni; Alessio Lupi; Silvia Rinaldi; Luca Cantini; Ilaria Fiordoliva; Anna Lisa Carloni; Lina Zuccatosta; Stefano Gasparini; Rossana BerardiLenci, Edoardo; Marcantognini, Giulia; Cognigni, Valeria; Lupi, Alessio; Rinaldi, Silvia; Cantini, Luca; Fiordoliva, Ilaria; Lisa Carloni, Anna; Zuccatosta, Lina; Gasparini, Stefano; Berardi, Rossan