The frequency of polidrug use in a driving population in Rome

In Italy the illicit substances routinely tested are cannabinoids, cocaine, opiates, amphetamines / methamphetamine, MDMA and similar but these substances are not the most use in our country. In particular, the consumption of ketamine represents an emerging problem. Ketamine is a anesthetic with hallucinogenic and dissociative effects and these are the ones sought for the voluptuary pur-pose, while the amnesic effect are exploited for drug facilitated sexual assault. Our study was car-ried out to assess the positivity for the illicit substances routinely tested and also for ketamine in a population of 182 patients arrived at the emergency room of the Hospital “San Camillo Forlanini” of Rome, for which have been required toxicological tests on the basis of Articles 186 and 187 of the New Highway Code. The choice of this kind of population allows to have an accurate and reliable epidemiological data about the real diffusion of voluptuary use of drugs. The study examines 182 samples subjected to routine toxicological investigations in the period be-tween October 2011 and August 2012. The Authors have researched the presence of ethanol, cannabinoids, cocaine, opiates, amphetamines and benzodiazepines with the use of “ADVIA Chemistry Systems ”, while the ketamine is tested by a single-phase tests on urine [Sure Screen Diagnostic (Di. Ra.Lab)] with a cut-off level of this method is 1000ng/ml. During this period we have considered 182 patients (males 78%, females 22%). The mean age was 34 years (standard deviation 13, minimum 15, maximum 80). Most of the admission were during the last days of the week (Thursday 17%, Friday 15%, Saturday 15% and Sunday 17%). With re-spect to the clinical needs of subjects admitted, 42% were admitted with a red code. Considering a single substance analysis, 46 subjects resulted positive to alcohol (25%), 38 to can-nabinoids (21%), 24 to opioids (13%), 20 to cocaine (11%), 19 to benzodiapezine (10%) and 7 to ketamine (4%). Among those who resulted positive to at least one substance (95, 52% of the sample) 55 subjects re-sulted positive to one substance (58%), 27 to two substances (28%) and 13 to three or more substances (13%). Poly-use was evaluated with an indicator previously proposed by Fabi et al in 2013. This resulted in a polydrug-use score equal to 2.93 (standard deviation 1.7, minimum 1.5, maximum 9.25)

H9c2 Cardiomyocytes under Hypoxic Stress: Biological Effects Mediated by Sentinel Downstream Targets

The association between diabetes and cardiovascular diseases is well known. Related diabetes macro- and microangiopathies frequently induce hypoxia and consequently energy failure to satisfy the jeopardized myocardium basal needs. Additionally, it is widely accepted that diabetes impairs endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) activity, resulting in diminished nitric oxide (NO) bioavailability and consequent endothelial cell dysfunction. In this study, we analyzed the embryonic heart-derived H9c2 cell response to hypoxic stress after administration of a high glucose concentration to reproduce a condition often observed in diabetes. We observed that 24 h hypoxia exposure of H9c2 cells reduced cell viability compared to cells grown in normoxic conditions. Cytotoxicity and early apoptosis were increased after exposure to high glucose administration. In addition, hypoxia induced a RhoA upregulation and a Bcl-2 downregulation and lowered the ERK activation observed in normoxia at both glucose concentrations. Furthermore, a significant cell proliferation rate increases after the 1400W iNOS inhibitor administration was observed. Again, hypoxia increased the expression level of myogenin, a marker of skeletal muscle cell differentiation. The cardiomyocyte gene expression profiles and morphology changes observed in response to pathological stimuli, as hypoxia, could lead to improper ventricular remodeling responsible for heart failure. Therefore, understanding cell signaling events that regulate cardiac response to hypoxia could be useful for the discovery of novel therapeutic approaches able to prevent heart diseases

The Role of Curcumin in Prostate Cancer Cells and Derived Spheroids

A major challenge in the clinical management of prostate cancer (PC) is to inhibit tumor growth and prevent metastatic spreading. In recent years, considerable efforts have been made to discover new compounds useful for PC therapy, and promising advances in this field were reached. Drugs currently used in PC therapy frequently induce resistance and PC progresses toward metastatic castration-resistant forms (mCRPC), making it virtually incurable. Curcumin, a commercially avail- able nutritional supplement, represents an attractive therapeutic agent for mCRPC patients. In the present study, we compared the effects of chemotherapeutic drugs such as docetaxel, paclitaxel, and cisplatin, to curcumin, on two PC cell lines displaying a different metastatic potential: DU145 (moder- ate metastatic potential) and PC-3 (high metastatic potential). Our results revealed a dose-dependent reduction of DU145 and PC-3 cell viability upon treatment with curcumin similar to chemotherapeutic agents (paclitaxel, cisplatin, and docetaxel). Furthermore, we explored the EGFR-mediated signaling effects on ERK activation in DU145 and PC-3 cells. Our results showed that DU145 and PC-3 cells overexpress EGFR, and the treatment with chemotherapeutic agents or curcumin reduced EGFR expression levels and ERK activation. Finally, chemotherapeutic agents and curcumin reduced the size of DU145 and PC-3 spheroids and have the potential to induce apoptosis and also in Matrigel. In conclusion, despite different studies being carried out to identify the potential synergistic curcumin combinations with chemopreventive/therapeutic efficacy for inhibiting PC growth, the results show the ability of curcumin used alone, or in combinatorial approaches, to impair the size and the viability of PC-derived spheroids

The incidence of hip, forearm, humeral, ankle, and vertebral fragility fractures in Italy: results from a 3-year multicenter study

INTRODUCTION: We aimed to assess the incidence and hospitalization rate of hip and "minor" fragility fractures in the Italian population. METHODS: We carried out a 3-year survey at 10 major Italian emergency departments to evaluate the hospitalization rate of hip, forearm, humeral, ankle, and vertebral fragility fractures in people 45 years or older between 2004 and 2006, both men and women. These data were compared with those recorded in the national hospitalizations database (SDO) to assess the overall incidence of fragility fractures occurring at hip and other sites, including also those events not resulting in hospital admissions. RESULTS: We observed 29,017 fractures across 3 years, with hospitalization rates of 93.0% for hip fractures, 36.3% for humeral fractures, 31.3% for ankle fractures, 22.6% for forearm/wrist fractures, and 27.6% for clinical vertebral fractures. According to the analyses performed with the Italian hospitalization database in year 2006, we estimated an annual incidence of 87,000 hip, 48,000 humeral, 36,000 ankle, 85,000 wrist, and 155,000 vertebral fragility fractures in people aged 45 years or older (thus resulting in almost 410,000 new fractures per year). Clinical vertebral fractures were recorded in 47,000 events per year. CONCLUSIONS: The burden of fragility fractures in the Italian population is very high and calls for effective preventive strategies

The Italian Network for Heart Failure five years after the publication of the Italian “Consensus conference on the management of heart failure”

In the year 2006 the Italian Association of Hospital Cardiologists (ANMCO) promoted a Consensus Conference among professional Scientific Societies in order to redefine the role and core responsibilities of each health professionals involved in heart failure management in a novel integrated network. Five years later, a questionnaire has been proposed to each Italian Regional President of the Association, in order to assess the implementation of the proposed management strategies in the different clinical scenarios of the Italian Regions. Although the Document utilization is not homogeneous through Italy, it is still considered a valuable tool of work

Scaling properties of tidal networks

A new methodology is developed to extract tidal network from hydrodynamic conditions, and use data derived from numerical modeling or field observations to test the hypothesis that tidal networks are characterized by scale-invariant properties. Different tidal network configurations have been obtained from long-term numerical simulations in an idealized basin. These simulations show the influence of hydrodynamic conditions (tidal range, TR) and sediment (grain size sediment, D50) on the final configuration of the network. One of the signatures of scale-invariant behavior is related to the presence of a power law relationship in the probability distribution of geometrical characteristics. For each model configuration and field site, the probability distribution of drainage area and the drainage volume has been calculated, and in both cases tidal networks show scale-invariant characteristics. After assessing the sensitivity of the results, an energy expenditure analysis shows that tidal basins evolve toward a state with less morphodynamic activity, with a lower energy expenditure compare with the initial state

Pathology reporting in neuroendocrine neoplasms of the digestive system: everything you always wanted to know but were too afraid to ask

During the 5th NIKE (Neuroendocrine tumors Innovation in Knowledge and Education) meeting, held in Naples, Italy, in May 2019, discussions centered on the understanding of pathology reports of gastroenetropancreactic neuroendocrine neoplasms. In particular, the main problem concerned the difficulty that clinicians experience in extrapolating relevant information from neuroendocrine tumor pathology reports. During the meeting, participants were asked to identify and rate issues which they have encountered, for which the input of an expert pathologist would have been appreciated. This article is a collection of the most rated questions and relative answers, focusing on three main topics: 1) morphology and classification; 2) Ki67 and grading; 3) immunohistochemistry. Patient management should be based on multidisciplinary decisions, taking into account clinical and pathology-related features with clear comprehension between all health care professionals. Indeed, pathologists require clinical details and laboratory findings when relevant, while clinicians require concise and standardized reports. In keeping with this last statement, the minimum requirements in pathology datasets are provided in this paper and should be a baseline for all neuroendocrine tumor professionals

Commentary: Case Report: Abdominal Lymph Node Metastases of Parathyroid Carcinoma: Diagnostic Workup, Molecular Diagnosis, and Clinical Management

In the issue of March 2021, Lenschow et al. reported the case of a 46-year-old woman with recurrent, programmed death-ligand-1 (PD-L1) negative, tumor mutational burden (TMB)-high parathyroid carcinoma (PC), who showed stable disease as her best response on imaging, and a three-fold drop in PTH after treatment with intravenous pembrolizumab. Given the remarkable results obtained by Lenschow et al. with the anti-PD-1 agent pembrolizumab in the above-mentioned case, we performed an extensive search for possible further relevant data sources, including a) full published articles in international online databases (PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, and Embase); b) preliminary reports in selected international meeting abstract repositories (American Society of Clinical Oncology, ASCO; European Neuroendocrine Tumor Society, ENET; European Society for Medical Oncology, ESMO); c) registered clinical trials in the U.S. National Institutes of Health registry of clinical trials (http://clinicaltrials.gov) and in any primary register of the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP)

ENIGMA-anxiety working group : Rationale for and organization of large-scale neuroimaging studies of anxiety disorders

Altres ajuts: Anxiety Disorders Research Network European College of Neuropsychopharmacology; Claude Leon Postdoctoral Fellowship; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation, 44541416-TRR58); EU7th Frame Work Marie Curie Actions International Staff Exchange Scheme grant 'European and South African Research Network in Anxiety Disorders' (EUSARNAD); Geestkracht programme of the Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development (ZonMw, 10-000-1002); Intramural Research Training Award (IRTA) program within the National Institute of Mental Health under the Intramural Research Program (NIMH-IRP, MH002781); National Institute of Mental Health under the Intramural Research Program (NIMH-IRP, ZIA-MH-002782); SA Medical Research Council; U.S. National Institutes of Health grants (P01 AG026572, P01 AG055367, P41 EB015922, R01 AG060610, R56 AG058854, RF1 AG051710, U54 EB020403).Anxiety disorders are highly prevalent and disabling but seem particularly tractable to investigation with translational neuroscience methodologies. Neuroimaging has informed our understanding of the neurobiology of anxiety disorders, but research has been limited by small sample sizes and low statistical power, as well as heterogenous imaging methodology. The ENIGMA-Anxiety Working Group has brought together researchers from around the world, in a harmonized and coordinated effort to address these challenges and generate more robust and reproducible findings. This paper elaborates on the concepts and methods informing the work of the working group to date, and describes the initial approach of the four subgroups studying generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, and specific phobia. At present, the ENIGMA-Anxiety database contains information about more than 100 unique samples, from 16 countries and 59 institutes. Future directions include examining additional imaging modalities, integrating imaging and genetic data, and collaborating with other ENIGMA working groups. The ENIGMA consortium creates synergy at the intersection of global mental health and clinical neuroscience, and the ENIGMA-Anxiety Working Group extends the promise of this approach to neuroimaging research on anxiety disorders