Современные аспекты атерогенеза

The basic postulate of atherosclerosis etiology and pathogenesis has changed during the last decade. This study, carried out on the human aorta and coronary heart vessels collected on 64 autopsies performed shortly after demise. Those with with cardiovascular insufficiency and an atherosclerosic background from 31 to 69 years of age were taken into the study group. Apoptotic cells were identified using terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase (TUNEL). The TUNEL-labeled nuclei were found mainly in the region of the plaque that shows a dense infiltration by macrophages. The death of foam cells at the edge of the lipid core shows both necrosis and apoptosis. The remnants of apoptotic nuclei are also present in the lipid core. Apoptosis plays a key role in regulation of cell accumulation during atherosclerosis. It suggests involvement of ICE in SMC death in fibrous regions of complex atheroma and in macrophage death in the lipid-rich core of the lesions.На протяжении последнего десятилетия основные постулаты этиологии и патогенеза атеросклероза претерпели значительные изменения. Наши исследования были проведены на аорте, коронарных артериях сердца и сонных артериях на этапе раннего патологоанатомического вскрытия у умерших в результате церебро- и кардиососудистых патологий на фоне атеросклероза. Апоптотические клетки были идентифицированы TUNEL-методом. Tакже был подтвержден апоптоз макрофагов, клеток гладкой мускулатуры и эндотелиальных клеток. TUNEL-положительные ядра преимущественно были обнаружены в области бляшки богатой макрофагами. Смерть пенистых клеток может быть вызвана как некрозом так и апоптозом. Остатки этого процесса присутствуют в некротическом ядре бляшки. Апоптотический процесс играет решающую роль в регулировании клеточных отложений, вызывает смерть клеточных элементов в области фиброзной капсулы, провоцируя дестабилизацию и разрыв бляшки

PRESTIGIO RING: “An 80-year-old man living with HIV resistant to all four antiretroviral classes and desiring treatment simplification”

People aging with 4 antiretroviral class resistant HIV are a very challenging population. It is difficult to build up a fully suppressive regimen, and the high prevalence of comorbidities and polypharmacy may cause drug-drug interactions and put adherence at risk. We herein present the case of an 80-year-old man, participating in the PRESTIGIO registry, asking for a reduction in his antiretroviral burden while on polypharmacy for his comorbidities

An alarm signal for the medical world addressed from the pathological anatomy service in the Republic of Moldova

Department of Morphopathology, Nicolae Testemitsanu State University of Medicine and Pharmacy Chisinau, the Republic of Moldova, Department of Microscopic Morphology/Histology, Angiogenesis Research Center, Victor Babes University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Timisoara, RomaniaBackground: Maintaining the quality and safety of pathology services is crucial for the efficient delivery of health care. However, pathology is, perhaps, the least understood of the medical specialties. In particular, the scope of pathology and the integral role it plays in all areas of medicine are not well recognized even by some of those working in health care environments. Strategic partnerships have as the main goal the enlargement of collaborative research and partnership on national and international level, mainly, but not exclusively in European Research Area. There is a perceived need for improved management practices, use of new technologies, and increased use of some categories of the personnel. Issues with the employment program were mentioned, including tracking, matching people to jobs, training, and finding more opportunities. There was a call for greater visibility in the community (both medical and scientific). The problems facing pathology teaching and pathology teachers mirror those of most other medical disciplines, namely a lack of time and money, and competing pressures from many other sources. Conclusion: There is the danger of producing doctors who cannot explain disease to their patients, who abuse laboratories and who have no interest in pursuing pathology as a career, leading to a slow and possibly irreversible decline in pathology as a medical profession

evaluation of liver fibrosis concordance analysis between noninvasive scores apri and fib 4 evolution and predictors in a cohort of hiv infected patients without hepatitis c and b infection

Background. There is lack of data on the incidence of liver fibrosis (LF) progression in patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) monoinfection and risk factors for LF. Methods. We performed an observational prospective study in a cohort of HIV-infected patients who had initiated highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). FIB-4 and aspartate aminotransferase (AST)-to-platelet ratio index (APRI) were assessed. The concordance between the 2 scores was assessed by weighted kappa coefficient. Kaplan-Meier analysis was used to estimate the incidence of LF. Cox regression analysis was used to assess the predictors of transition. Results. A total of 1112 patients were observed for a mean of 2249 days of follow-up. The concordance between FIB-4 and APRI was moderate (kappa = .573). The incidence of transition to higher FIB-4 classes was 0.064 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.056―0.072) per person-year of follow-up (PYFU), whereas the incidence of transition to higher APRI classes was 0.099 (95% CI, 0.089-0.110) per PYFU. The incidence of transition to FIB-4 >3.25 was 0.013 per PYFU (95% CI, 0.010-0.017) and 0.018 per PYFU (95% CI, 0.014―0.022) for APRI >1.5. In multivariate analyses, for transition to higher classes, HIV RNA level 3.25 and APRI> 1.5 as study outcomes. Conclusions. Overall, our results suggest a possible benefit associated with earlier HAART initiation, provided that the effectiveness of HAART is sustained and treatment with DDX is avoided

Recurrent Neural Networks for Daily Estimation of COVID-19 Prognosis with Uncertainty Handling

Most ML-based applications for COVID-19 assess the general conditions of a patient trained and tested on cohorts of patients collected over a short period of time and are capable of providing an alarm a few days in advance, helping clinicians in emergency situations, monitor hospitalised patients and identify potentially critical situations at an early stage. However, the pandemic continues to evolve due to new variants, treatments, and vaccines; considering datasets over short periods could not capture this aspect. In addition, these applications often avoid dealing with the uncertainty associated with the prediction provided by machine learning models, potentially causing costly mistakes. In this work, we present a system based on Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN) for the daily estimate of the prognosis of COVID-19 patients that is built and tested using data collected over a long period of time. Our system achieves high predictive performance and uses an algorithm to effectively determine and discard those patients for whom RNN cannot predict the prognosis with sufficient confidence

Прогностические показатели развития ювенильного идиопатического артрита

Department of Pediatrics, Nicolae Testemitanu State Medical and Pharmaceutical University, Congresul III al Medicilor de Familie din Republica Moldova, 17–18 mai, 2012, Chişinău, Republica Moldova, Conferinţa Naţională „Maladii bronhoobstructive la copii”, consacrată profesorului universitar, doctor habilitat Victor Gheţeul, 27 aprilie, Chişinău, Republica MoldovaJuvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) is a highly disabling disease that leads to functional and physical compromise by osteo-articulars lesions and premature mortality in systemic diseases, impacting medical, social and economic well-being. To determine the prognosis of development indices JIA, discriminant function (F) was used and clinical examination was performed which included studying the patient’s age at disease onset, disease duration, number of joints and laboratory tests included studying the radiological stage after Steinbrocker. The discriminant function was performed in a group of 51 patients diagnosed with JIA. Factors that influenced the favorable evolution of JIA were high patient age at the onset of disease, low disease duration, a low number of joints and radiological stages I-II after Steinbrocker. The presence of these factors allowed us to predict 72.4% of cases with a favorable outcome. On the other hand, young age at onset, long disease duration, a high number of joints and radiological stages III-IV after Steinbrocker were unfavorable prognostic factors. The presence of these indices allowed the estimation of adverse developments in 77.3% of cases.Ювенильный идиопатический артрит (ЮИА) является хроническим заболеванием, которое приводит к функциональной и физической недостаточности, костно-суставным повреждениям преждевременной смертности (при системном варианте), имеет медицинское, социальное и экономическое значение. Для определения прогнозирующих факторов развития ЮИА была использована математическая дискриминантная функция (F) с проведением клинического обследования, которое включало изучение возраста пациента в начале заболевания, длительность заболевания, количество болезненных суставов, а лабораторные исследования включали изучение радиологических стадий по Штейнброкеру. Дискриминантная функция была определена у 51 пациентов с ЮИА. Таким образом, факторы, влияющие на благоприятную эволюцию ЮИА, были: возраст старше 10 лет в начале заболевания, короткая длительность заболевания, малое число болезненных суставов и радиологические стадии I-II по Штейнброкеру. Наличие этих факторов позволило в 72,4% случаев прогнозировать благоприятный исход ЮИА. С другой стороны, малый возраст пациента в начале заболевания, большая длительность заболевания, большое количество болезненных суставов и радиологические стадии III-IV по Штейнброкеру были неблагоприятными прогностическими факторами. Присутствие этих показателей позволило прогнозировать неблагоприятный исход в 77,3% случаев

Pore Etching in III-V and II-VI Semiconductor Compounds in Neutral Electrolyte

Access full text - https://doi.org/10.1149/1.2771076We propose to use a neutral electrolyte based on an aqueous solution of instead of commonly used aggressive acids or alkaline electrolytes for the purpose of electrochemical nanostructuring of and substrates. It is shown that the process of material porosification can be controlled by the conditions of anodic etching. A photoluminescence analysis of the porous structures obtained and referenced to the as-grown substrate demonstrates that an effective passivation of the surface occurs during anodization in this electrolyte. The results obtained pave the way for the development of optoelectronic devices based on electrochemically nanostructured and compounds, particularly for high-efficiency solar cells

CDKN1A upregulation and cisplatin-pemetrexed resistance in non-small cell lung cancer cells

Cisplatin-pemetrexed is a frequently adopted first-line treatment for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) ineligible for biological therapy, notwithstanding its limited efficacy. In the present study, the RAL cell line, an epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-wild-type, p53- and KRAS-mutated model of NSCLC, was used to investigate novel biomarkers of resistance to this treatment. Cells were analyzed 96 h (96 h-post wo) and 21 days (21 days-post wo) after the combined treatment washout. Following an initial moderate sensitivity to the treatment, the cell growth proliferative capability had fully recovered. Gene expression analysis of the resistant surviving cells revealed a significant upregulation of CDKN1A expression in the cells at 96-h post-wo and, although to a lesser extent, in the cells at 21 days-post wo, accompanied by an enrichment of acetylated histone H3 in its promoter region. CDKN1A was also upregulated at the protein level, being mainly detected in the cytoplasm of the cells at 96 h-post wo. A marked increase in the number of apoptotic cells, together with a significant G1 phase block, were observed at 96-h post wo in the cells in which CDKN1A was knocked down, suggesting its involvement in the modulation of the response of RAL cells to the drug combination. On the whole, these data suggest that CDKN1A plays a role in the response to the cisplatin-pemetrexed combination in advanced KRAS-mutated NSCLC, thus suggesting that it may be used as a promising predictive marker

Formation of metal wire arrays via electrodeposition in pores of Si, Ge and III–V semiconductors

Access full text - https://doi.org/10.1002/pssa.200674352Deep straight macropores in n-type Si have been completely filled with copper (Cu). Homogeneous metal deposition inside the deep pores was achieved by means of electroplating using a solution containing only CuSO4 mixed with H2SO4 and an optimized process that begins at the bottom of the pores. Pores as deep as 150 µm could be filled without encountering the so-called “bottleneck” effect. Straight macropores with diameters below 100 nm and extreme aspect ratios in InP could be filled with Cu using a pulsed process. Interconnected pores extending in the available set of 111 directions in 100 GaAs and forming domains could not be filled with Cu; instead the volume occupied by the pore domain was completely filled with Cu; i.e. the porous structure was destroyed. A possible reason for this new effect will be given

Focusing effect of photonic crystal concave lenses made from porous dielectrics

Access full text - https://doi.org/10.1002/pssa.200409035In the present paper we show the photonic band structure and transmittance spectra of photonic crystal (PC) consisting of porous dielectric and compare the results with the earlier published. Frequency ranges, where PC can be ascribed an effective index of refraction, are given and approximately indicated on the transmittance spectra. This helps to identify optical elements' properties made of porous dielectric: lenses in our case. The focusing effect of PC concave lens, working in the long wavelength limit and spectral regions with a negative refractive index, is investigated. We prove the good focusing effect of such lenses that can be easily fabricated