Effect of Intravitreal Brolucizumab in the Treatment of Polypoidal Choroidal Vasculopathy With Foveal Lipid Exudation.

A 71-year-old woman with a history of blurred vision in her right eye for nearly two months came to our attention. A complete ophthalmological evaluation, including best-corrected visual acuity measurement, fundus examination, spectral-domain optical coherence tomography, fluorescein angiography, and indocyanine green angiography, was performed. Multimodal imaging showed the presence of a polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy (PCV) lesion surrounded by diffuse hard exudates in the macular area. Our patient received three monthly intravitreal injections of brolucizumab during the loading phase, followed by an intravitreal injection every eight weeks for a total of 48 weeks of follow-up. The therapy appeared to be effective for improving both visual and anatomical outcomes revealing an important regression of the PCV and an almost complete reabsorption of lipid exudates. Intravitreal brolucizumab could be considered an effective treatment in the management of lipid exudation in PCV patients

Management of Accidental Intravitreal Dexamethasone Injection Into the Lens: A Case Report.

An accidental injection of a dexamethasone implant inside the crystalline lens was observed in the right eye of a 63-year-old woman suffering from a macular edema secondary to a central retinal vein occlusion. A 23-gauge pars plana vitrectomy and lensectomy followed by an intraocular lens implantation were performed to carefully remove the lens and save the whole implant in order to preserve its therapeutics effects. A strict follow-up over the following 3 months revealed an improving of macular edema and no postoperative complications. The injection of a dexamethasone implant into the lens could be effectively and successfully managed with a pars plana vitrectomy and lensectomy

Effect of rearing system and genotype on performance, carcass characteristics and meat quality of slow growing rabbits

Introduction - The conservation of local rabbit breeds, characterized by slow growth, is very important for organic farming, because in most cases production regulations prohibit the use of commercial hybrids. Aim - The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of two different housing systems on the productive performance, carcass characteristics and meat quality of the local grey coloured rabbit population of Tuscany (middle-west Italy) compared to commercial hybrids. Material and methods - 88 rabbits of local populations were housed in colony cages, in open air (GO) organic rearing system; 84 rabbits of the same autochthonous populations (GI) and 80 hybrids (HI) were housed in colony cages in conventional rearing system. An organic diet, composed by pelleted feed and alfalfa hay, was given ad libitum. Thirty animals of each group were slaughtered at 103 days (autochthonous) and 90 days of age (hybrids), and carcass and meat quality parameters were assessed. Results and discussion - The HI group showed the lowest live weight at slaughtering age, the poorest productive performance and the highest mortality. GI group showed the highest live weight and more favorable feed conversion ratio compared with GO group. GO and GI groups showed higher hot carcass and dressing out percentage and lower incidence of full gastrointestinal tract percentage than group HI. Hind leg meat-to-bone ratio was significantly higher in HI group than in GO and GI groups (4.7% vs. 4.0% and 3.8%, respectively; P<0.05). The lowest muscular acidification was found in group GO (pHu=5.79 vs. 5.59 and 5.63, for group GO, GI and HI, respectively; P<0.05). The muscles of GO group showed lower lightness (L*) than the other groups (GO = 54.4 vs. GI = 59.1 vs. HI = 63.4; P<0.05). The GO and GI groups showed higher redness and yellowness than HI group. Chemical composition and lipid oxidation did not show differences due to genotype or housing system. As far as fatty acid content concerns, differences were found only for miristic and vaccenic acid between GO and HI groups. Conclusions - The local rabbits yielded more coloured meat, which could add value for potential consumers, independently of the rearing system used in the study

Exploiting the potential of large eddy simulations (LES) for ducted fuel injection investigation in non-reacting conditions

The diesel combustion research is increasingly focused on ducted fuel injection (DFI), a promising concept to abate engine-out soot emissions in compression-ignition engines. A large set of experiments carried out in constant volume vessel and numerical simulations, at medium-low computational cost, showed that the duct adoption in front of the injector nozzle activates several soot mitigation mechanisms, leading to quasi-zero soot formation in several engine-like operating conditions. However, although the simplified CFD modelling so far played a crucial role for the preliminary understanding of DFI technology, a more accurate turbulence description approach, combined with a large set of numerical experiments for statistical purposes, is of paramount importance for a robust knowledge of the DFI physical behaviour. In this context, the present work exploits the potential of large eddy simulations (LES) to analyse the non-reacting spray of DFI configuration compared with the unconstrained spray. For this purpose, a previously developed spray model, calibrated and validated in the RANS framework against an extensive amount of experimental data related to both free spray and DFI, has been employed. The tests have been carried out considering a single-hole injector in an optical accessible constant volume vessel, properly replicated in the simulation environment. This high-fidelity simulation model has been adapted for LES, firstly selecting the best grid settings, and then carrying out several numerical experiments for both spray configurations until achieving a satisfying statistical convergence. With this aim, the number of independent samples for the averaging procedure has been increased exploiting the axial symmetry characteristics of the present case study. Thanks to this approach, a detailed description of the main DFI-enabled soot mitigation mechanisms has been achieved, shrinking the knowledge gap in the physical understanding of the impact of spray-duct interaction

Interobserver Agreement of Novel Classification of Central Serous Chorioretinopathy

Objective To validate the newly proposed multimodal-imaging-based classification for central serous chorioretinopathy (CSCR). Methods This was a retrospective study performed in a total of 87 eyes of 44 patients with a diagnosis of CSCR. Multimodal images in the form of auto-fluorescence, fundus fluorescein angiography, indocyanine green angiography, and optical coherence tomography (OCT) images, of all the patients, were presented to two masked retina specialists. The masked observers graded each eye into simple or complex; primary, recurrent, resolved; and specific features such as foveal involvement, outer retinal atrophy, and choroidal neovascularization (CNV). Interobserver agreement was assessed using Cohen's kappa. In areas of non-consensus, a detailed discussion was carried out with a third independent grader. Results The mean age of the 44 patients (32 males and 12 females) was 49.2±9.3 years. We found a moderate-strong agreement between the two observers in all subclassifications, that included "simple or complex" (kappa value=0.91, 95% CI 0.82-0.99, p&lt;0.001); "primary/recurrent/resolved" (kappa value=0.88, 95% CI 0.80-0.96, p&lt;0.001) and "foveal involvement" (kappa value=0.89,95%CI 0.8-0.98, p&lt;0.001). However, there was less agreement between the two graders with respect to classification of "outer retinal atrophy" (kappa value=0.72, 95%CI 0.57-0.87, p&lt;0.001) and "presence/absence of CNV" (kappa value=0.75, 95% CI 0.58-0.92, p&lt;0.001). Non-consensus in categorizing "outer retinal atrophy" was seen in eyes with sub-retinal hyper-reflective material (SHRM) and outer nuclear layer (ONL) thinning overlying subretinal fluid, and non-consensus in categorizing "CNV" was seen in eyes with inner choroidal atrophy. Conclusion Our study reports the validity and strong interobserver agreement in several aspects of the multimodal-imaging-based classification. This could support its implementation in clinical practice and pave way for appropriate treatment guidelines