Photochemical behavior of the drug atorvastatin in water.

Atorvastatin undergoes a self-sensitized photooxygenation by sunlight in water. The main photoproducts, isolated by chromatographic techniques, have been identified by spectroscopic means. They present a lactam ring arising from an oxidation of pyrrole ring and an alkyl/aryl shift. A mechanism involving singlet oxygen addition and an epoxide intermediate is suggested

Reanalysis of updated mortality among vinyl and polyvinyl chloride workers: Confirmation of historical evidence and new findings

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The production of vinyl chloride (VC) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) involves the use of various chemicals, some known to be toxic and potentially or definitely carcinogenic. The related potential risk often has not been properly investigated. Updated cancer mortality among different subgroups of workers employed in a VC-PVC production plant located in Porto Marghera (Italy) was re-analyzed using an internal reference group of workers with low (or null) exposure to VC.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Mortality of 1658 male workers was analyzed by Poisson regression. Relative risks (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for blue collar workers and their specific subgroups of PVC baggers, PVC compound, autoclave and other blue collar workers were calculated using technicians and clerks as an internal reference group. The follow-up covered the period 1972–1999.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Significantly increased mortality rates were observed for all causes of death among the whole blue collar workforce (RR = 1.55; 95% CI = 1.03–2.35; 229 deaths), PVC baggers (1.72; 95% CI = 1.04–2.83; 49 deaths) and PVC compound workers (1.71; 95% CI = 1.09–2.67; 72 deaths). Liver cancer, including angiosarcoma, was increased among autoclave workers (9.57; 95% CI = 3.71–24.68; 7 deaths) and cardiovascular diseases among PVC baggers (2.25; 95% CI = 1.08–4.70; 12 deaths). Hemolymphopoietic system tumors, leukemias and lymphomas prevalently, were found only among exposed workers, with 4, 4 and 6 deaths observed among PVC baggers, PVC compound and other blue collar workers, respectively. An excess of lung cancer was found among PVC baggers.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This cohort analysis, based on internal comparison, confirmed previously reported specific risk excesses for liver tumors and liver cirrhosis among autoclave workers and for lung cancer among PVC baggers, and revealed PVC compound workers as a possible new at risk group for all causes, all tumors and for liver and lung tumors. In conclusion, RRs for all causes of death and all tumors were increased among all blue collar workers.</p

The short-term supplementation of monacolin K improves the lipid and metabolic patterns of hypertensive and hypercholesterolemic subjects at low cardiovascular risk

A nutraceutical compound containing 10 mg of MK appeared to be safe, well tolerated and effective at improving lipid and glucose patterns

Unexpected additional increase in the incidence of thyroid cancer among a recent birth cohort in Switzerland

Data collected by the Swiss Cancer Registries Network (ASRT/VSKR) have been used to analyse trends in thyroid cancer during the last available 20 years, to make within-country geographical comparisons for current incidence rates. Age-standardized (European population) incidence rates per 100,000 for all morphologies combined ranges from 1.62 to 2.99 among males and from 2.13 to 8.09 among females in Switzerland. Regression analyses for both sexes combined detected an increase in time for papillary cases and a decrease for other types. Age-period-cohort analyses revealed that the youngest cohorts of men and women born after 1940 had an increased risk of all types of thyroid cancer while the cohort of people born between 1920 and 1939 were at increased risk of the papillary subtype. Assuming a higher sensitivity to ionizing radiation among the youngest people, a Chernobyl effect cannot be definitively excluded and continuous study of this topic should be encouraged. [Authors]]]> oai:serval.unil.ch:BIB_E34753EE75AC 2022-05-07T01:28:52Z <oai_dc:dc xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:oai_dc="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc/" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc/ http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc.xsd"> https://serval.unil.ch/notice/serval:BIB_E34753EE75AC Compte rendu de: Paul M. Lloyd, From Latin to Spanish, vol.I: Historical Phonology and Morphology of the Spanish Language, Paul M. Lloyd, From Latin to Spanish, vol.I: Historical Phonology and Morphology of the Spanish Language, Philadelphia, 1987; in Vox Romanica 47, 293-297 Eberenz, R info:eu-repo/semantics/other misc 1988 oai:serval.unil.ch:BIB_E347DD056C35 2022-05-07T01:28:52Z <oai_dc:dc xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:oai_dc="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc/" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc/ http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc.xsd"> https://serval.unil.ch/notice/serval:BIB_E347DD056C35 Sobre tablas y entre bastidores. Acercamientos al teatro español. Homenaje al profesor Antonio Lara Pozuelo urn:isbn:9788497429986 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/isbn/9788497429986 http://www.bibliotecanueva.es/ La Torre, M. de (ed.) Béguelin, V. (ed.) Eberenz, R. (ed.) info:eu-repo/semantics/book book 2009-07 spa oai:serval.unil.ch:BIB_E349C9778321 2022-05-07T01:28:52Z <oai_dc:dc xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:oai_dc="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc/" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc/ http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc.xsd"> https://serval.unil.ch/notice/serval:BIB_E349C9778321 Discussion et recommandations : le point de vue du management public Chappelet, J.-L. Emery, Y. info:eu-repo/semantics/bookPart incollection 2009 Réformes de politiques institutionnelles et action publique = Reformen institutioneller Politiken und Staatshandeln, pp. 271-279 Knoepfel, P. (ed.) info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/isbn/9782880748272 fre oai:serval.unil.ch:BIB_E349D01878E9 2022-05-07T01:28:52Z <oai_dc:dc xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:oai_dc="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc/" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc/ http://www.openarchives.org/OAI/2.0/oai_dc.xsd"> https://serval.unil.ch/notice/serval:BIB_E349D01878E9 Navigator-gated and real-time motion corrected free-breathing MR Imaging of myocardial late enhancement. info:doi:10.1055/s-2002-28271 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1055/s-2002-28271 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/pmid/11997854 Spuentrup, E. Buecker, A. Karassimos, E. Günther, R.W. Stuber, M. info:eu-repo/semantics/article article 2002 Röfo, vol. 174, no. 5, pp. 562-567 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/pissn/1438-9029[print], 1438-9010[linking] <![CDATA[PURPOSE: A new magnetic resonance imaging approach for detection of myocardial late enhancement during free-breathing was developed. METHODS AND RESULTS: For suppression of respiratory motion artifacts, a prospective navigator technology including real-time motion correction and a local navigator restore was implemented. Subject specific inversion times were defined from images with incrementally increased inversion times acquired during a single dynamic scout navigator-gated and real-time motion corrected free-breathing scan. Subsequently, MR-imaging of myocardial late enhancement was performed with navigator-gated and real-time motion corrected adjacent short axis and long axis (two, three and four chamber) views. This alternative approach was investigated in 7 patients with history of myocardial infarction 12 min after i. v. administration of 0.2 mmol/kg body weight gadolinium-DTPA. CONCLUSION: With the presented navigator-gated and real-time motion corrected sequence for MR-imaging of myocardial late enhancement data can be completely acquired during free-breathing. Time constraints of a breath-hold technique are abolished and optimized patient specific inversion time is ensured

RiboAbacus: a model trained on polyribosome images predicts ribosome density and translational efficiency from mammalian transcriptomes

Fluctuations in mRNA levels only partially contribute to determine variations in mRNA availability for translation, producing the well-known poor correlation between transcriptome and proteome data. Recent advances in microscopy now enable researchers to obtain high resolution images of ribosomes on transcripts, providing precious snapshots of translation in vivo. Here we propose RiboAbacus, a mathematical model that for the first time incorporates imaging data in a predictive model of transcript-specific ribosome densities and translational efficiencies. RiboAbacus uses a mechanistic model of ribosome dynamics, enabling the quantification of the relative importance of different features (such as codon usage and the 5′ ramp effect) in determining the accuracy of predictions. The model has been optimized in the human Hek-293 cell line to fit thousands of images of human polysomes obtained by atomic force microscopy, from which we could get a reference distribution of the number of ribosomes per mRNA with unmatched resolution. After validation, we applied RiboAbacus to three case studies of known transcriptome-proteome datasets for estimating the translational efficiencies, resulting in an increased correlation with corresponding proteomes. RiboAbacus is an intuitive tool that allows an immediate estimation of crucial translation properties for entire transcriptomes, based on easily obtainable transcript expression levels

Urinary and sexual outcomes in long-term (5+ years) prostate cancer disease free survivors after radical prostatectomy

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>After long term disease free follow up (FUp) patients reconsider quality of life (QOL) outcomes. Aim of this study is assess QoL in prostate cancer patients who are disease-free at least 5 years after radical prostatectomy (RP).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>367 patients treated with RP for clinically localized pCa, without biochemical failure (PSA ≤ 0.2 ng/mL) at the follow up ≥ 5 years were recruited.</p> <p>Urinary (UF) and Sexual Function (SF), Urinary (UB) and Sexual Bother (SB) were assessed by using UCLA-PCI questionnaire. UF, UB, SF and SB were analyzed according to: treatment timing <it>(age at time of RP, FUp duration, age at time of FUp)</it>, tumor characteristics <it>(preoperative PSA, TNM stage, pathological Gleason score)</it>, nerve sparing (NS) procedure, and hormonal treatment (HT).</p> <p>We calculated the differences between 93 NS-RP without HT (group A) and 274 non-NS-RP or NS-RP with HT (group B). We evaluated the correlation between function and bother in group A according to follow-up duration.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Time since prostatectomy had a negative effect on SF and a positive effect SB (both p < 0.001). Elderly men at follow up experienced worse UF and SF (p = 0.02 and p < 0.001) and better SB (p < 0.001).</p> <p>Higher stage PCa negatively affected UB, SF, and SB (all: p ≤ 0.05). NS was associated with better UB, SF and SB (all: p ≤ 0.05); conversely, HT was associated with worse UF, SF and SB (all: p ≤ 0.05).</p> <p>More than 8 years after prostatectomy SF of group A and B were similar. Group A subjects (NS-RP without HT) demonstrated worsening SF, but improved SB, suggesting dissociation of the correlation between SF and SB over time.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Older age at follow up and higher pathological stage were associated with worse QoL outcomes after RP. The direct correlation between UF and age at follow up, with no correlation between UF and age at time of RP suggests that other issues (i.e: vascular or neurogenic disorders), subsequent to RP, are determinant on urinary incontinence. After NS-RP without HT the correlation between SF and SB is maintained for 7 years, after which function and bother appear to have divergent trajectories.</p

The acute phase management of spinal cord injury affecting polytrauma patients : the ASAP study

Publisher Copyright: © 2022, The Author(s).Background: Few data on the management of acute phase of traumatic spinal cord injury (tSCI) in patients suffering polytrauma are available. As the therapeutic choices in the first hours may have a deep impact on outcome of tSCI patients, we conducted an international survey investigating this topic. Methods: The survey was composed of 29 items. The main endpoints of the survey were to examine: (1) the hemodynamic and respiratory management, (2) the coagulation management, (3) the timing of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and spinal surgery, (4) the use of corticosteroid therapy, (5) the role of intraspinal pressure (ISP)/spinal cord perfusion pressure (SCPP) monitoring and (6) the utilization of therapeutic hypothermia. Results: There were 171 respondents from 139 centers worldwide. A target mean arterial pressure (MAP) target of 80–90 mmHg was chosen in almost half of the cases [n = 84 (49.1%)]. A temporary reduction in the target MAP, for the time strictly necessary to achieve bleeding control in polytrauma, was accepted by most respondents [n = 100 (58.5%)]. Sixty-one respondents (35.7%) considered acceptable a hemoglobin (Hb) level of 7 g/dl in tSCI polytraumatized patients. An arterial partial pressure of oxygen (PaO2) of 80–100 mmHg [n = 94 (55%)] and an arterial partial pressure of carbon dioxide (PaCO2) of 35–40 mmHg [n = 130 (76%)] were chosen in most cases. A little more than half of respondents considered safe a platelet (PLT) count > 100.000/mm3 [n = 99 (57.9%)] and prothrombin time (PT)/activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT) < 1.5 times the normal control [n = 85 (49.7%)] in patients needing spinal surgery. MRI [n = 160 (93.6%)] and spinal surgery [n = 158 (92.4%)] should be performed after intracranial, hemodynamic, and respiratory stabilization by most respondents. Corticosteroids [n = 103 (60.2%)], ISP/SCPP monitoring [n = 148 (86.5%)], and therapeutic hypothermia [n = 137 (80%)] were not utilized by most respondents. Conclusions: Our survey has shown a great worldwide variability in clinical practices for acute phase management of tSCI patients with polytrauma. These findings can be helpful to define future research in order to optimize the care of patients suffering tSCI.Peer reviewe

The rapid spread of SARS-COV-2 Omicron variant in Italy reflected early through wastewater surveillance

The SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant emerged in South Africa in November 2021, and has later been identified worldwide, raising serious concerns. A real-time RT-PCR assay was designed for the rapid screening of the Omicron variant, targeting characteristic mutations of the spike gene. The assay was used to test 737 sewage samples collected throughout Italy (19/21 Regions) between 11 November and 25 December 2021, with the aim of assessing the spread of the Omicron variant in the country. Positive samples were also tested with a real-time RT-PCR developed by the European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), and through nested RT-PCR followed by Sanger sequencing. Overall, 115 samples tested positive for Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variant. The first occurrence was detected on 7 December, in Veneto, North Italy. Later on, the variant spread extremely fast in three weeks, with prevalence of positive wastewater samples rising from 1.0% (1/104 samples) in the week 5-11 December, to 17.5% (25/143 samples) in the week 12-18, to 65.9% (89/135 samples) in the week 19-25, in line with the increase in cases of infection with the Omicron variant observed during December in Italy. Similarly, the number of Regions/Autonomous Provinces in which the variant was detected increased from one in the first week, to 11 in the second, and to 17 in the last one. The presence of the Omicron variant was confirmed by the JRC real-time RT-PCR in 79.1% (91/115) of the positive samples, and by Sanger sequencing in 66% (64/97) of PCR amplicons. In conclusion, we designed an RT-qPCR assay capable to detect the Omicron variant, which can be successfully used for the purpose of wastewater-based epidemiology. We also described the history of the introduction and diffusion of the Omicron variant in the Italian population and territory, confirming the effectiveness of sewage monitoring as a powerful surveillance tool