Takotsubo cardiomyopathy in a Caucasian Italian woman: Case report

BACKGROUND: Takotsubo cardiomyopathy is an acute cardiac syndrome characterized by transient LV regional wall motion abnormalities (with peculiar apical ballooning appearance), chest pain or dyspnea, ST-segment elevation and minor elevations of cardiac enzyme levels CASE PRESENTATION: A 68-year-old woman was admitted to the Emergency Department because of sudden onset chest pain occurred while transferring her daughter, who had earlier suffered a major seizure, to the hospital. The EKG showed sinus tachycardia with ST-segment elevation in leads V2–V3 and ST-segment depression in leads V5–V6, she was, thus, referred for emergency coronary angiography. A pre-procedural transthoracic echocardiogram revealed regional systolic dysfunction of the LV walls with hypokinesis of the mid-apical segments and hyperkinesis of the basal segments. Coronary angiography showed patent epicardial coronary arteries; LV angiography demonstrated the characteristic morphology of apical ballooning with hyperkinesis of the basal segments and hypokinesis of the mid-apical segments. The post-procedural course was uneventful; on day 5 after admission the echocardiogram revealed full recovery of apical and mid-ventricular regional wall-motion abnormalities. CONCLUSION: Takotsubo cardiomyopathy is a relatively rare, unique entity that has only recently been widely appreciated. Acute stress has been indicated as a common trigger for the transient LV apical ballooning syndrome, especially in postmenopausal women. The present report is a typical example of stress-induced takotsubo cardiomyopathy in a Caucasian Italian postmenopausal woman

Case report: Ponatinib as a bridge to CAR-T cells and subsequent maintenance in a patient with relapsed/refractory Philadelphia-like acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Philadelphia (Ph)-like acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) constitutes a heterogeneous subset of ALL with a uniformly unfavorable prognosis. The identification of mutations amenable to treatment with tyrosine kinase-inhibitors (TKIs) represents a promising field of investigation. We report the case of a young patient affected by relapsed/refractory Ph-like ALL treated with chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR-T) cells after successful bridging with compassionate-use ponatinib and low-dose prednisone. We restarted low-dose ponatinib maintenance three months later. Twenty months later, measurable residual disease negativity and B-cell aplasia persist. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case reporting the use of ponatinib in Ph-like ALL as a bridge to and maintenance after CAR-T cell therapy

A Systematic Review on Earthworms in Soil Bioremediation

Bioremediation techniques are increasingly popular in addressing soil pollution. Despite this, using earthworms as first actors or adjuvants in decontamination is an open and little-discussed field. This paper focuses on vermiremediation effectiveness alone or combined with other bioremediation methods, such as phytoremediation and bioaugmentation. Literature was collected following the PRISMA criteria, setting the search with the following keywords: “(vermiremediation) AND (bioremediation OR phytoremediation OR plant*) AND (bioaugmentation OR bacteria)”. The investigation was performed on Google Scholar, Science Direct, SciFinder and Web of Science databases. The article data were collected, compared, elaborated, graphically summarised and discussed to assess if the earthworms’ activities play a critical role in tackling several soil pollutions. Furthermore, the review aimed to identify the most promising techniques in the function of the xenobiotic examined: organic, inorganic or both. Any gaps and criticism were highlighted to facilitate future research in this study area

Microbial Evolution During Degradation of Fungicide in an Organic Biomixture

Biological systems are being developed all over the EU coun- tries to protect water-bodies from pesticides contamination at farm level. Biobeds are on-farm biological system developed in Sweden to retain and attenuate pesticides contamination coming from inappropriate procedures at pesticide mixing and handling sites and inappropriate disposal of pesticide sprayer rinse water (Coppola et al., 2007; Castillo et al., 2008). The experiment was conducted when equipments were washed in a biobed after treatments. Commercial formulates of dimetomorph(DF), pen- conazole(PC), azoxystrobin(AZ), metalaxyl(MX), \ufb02udioxonil(FL) and cyprodinil(CY) were mixed and downloaded onto the bio mix- ture following concentrations and time schedule of treatments for grapevine season during 112 days. Pesticides degradation was monitored by measuring the residual concentration over the time. he evolution of microbial community were monitored using culture-dependent and independent methods such as viable plate count and Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis (DGGE) to describe the in\ufb02uence of fungicides on microbial diversity. Rela- tion between microorganisms variation and fungicide degradation was investigated to improve the system ef\ufb01ciency. Results showed a good capability of biomix to degrade pesticides. At the end of the experimentation time the concentration of most of pesticides was nearly to the complete degradation. No signi\ufb01cant differences were observed in culture-dependent heterotrophic bacterial and fungal evolution during the treatment. DGGE analysis of bacterial community after two consecutive treatments with PC+DF and after the treatment with AZ+CY+FL showed the highest differences between treated samples and their controls. DGGE analysis showed a strong reduction of fungal com- munity after PC+DF addition (10th and 23th day). At 64th day fungicides were almost degraded and an evident enhancement of fungal biodiversity with the appearance of new species was shown. Interestingly, at the end of the experiment the microbial commu- nity exhibited a strong similarity between treated and untreated sample indicating that the variations of microbial community was only temporally

Microtensile bond strength evaluation of self-adhesive resin cement to zirconia ceramic after different pre-treatments

Purpose: To evaluate the influence of different surface treatments and metal primer application on bond strength of zirconia ceramic to a self-adhesive resin cement. Methods: 40 cylinder-shaped (empty set 12 x 5.25 mm high) of zirconia ceramic (Aadva Zirconia) were randomly divided into four groups (n= 10), based on the surface treatment to be performed: (1) Sandblasting with 125 mu m Al2O3 particles (S) (positive control); (2) Selective infiltration etching (SIE); (3) Experimental heated etching solution applied for 30 minutes (ST); (4) No treatment (C). Half of the zirconia specimens of each group received the application of Metal Primer II. Eight disks for each group were luted using a self-adhesive resin cement (G-Cem Automix) to composite overlays (Paradigm MZ100). After 24-hour storage (37 degrees C, 100% RH) bonded specimens were cut into microtensile sticks and loaded in tension until failure. Data were analyzed with two-way ANOVA and Games-Howell (P lt 0.05). Failure mode distribution was recorded and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to examine the fractured microbars. The remaining cylinders of each group (n= 2) were used for SEM surface analysis. Results: Both surface treatments and Metal Primer IT application improved bond strength values (P lt 0.05). When Metal Primer II was not applied ST treatment achieved highest bond strength values (22.17 +/- 10.37 MPa). Sandblasting in combination with Metal Primer II enhanced bond strength values compared to the other groups (23.46 +/- 11.19 MPa). (Am J Dent 2012;25;269-275)

Fungicides degradation in an organic biomixture: impact on microbial diversity

Biological systems are being developed all over EU countries to protect water-bodies from pesticide contamination at farm level. A laboratory experiment was carried out to test the efficiency of a mixture of compost and straw in bio-degrading different mixtures of fungicides usually applied in vineyards. At the same time the effects of fungicide applications on microbial community of biomixture were also evaluated. Results showed that the biomixture had a good capability of degrading pesticides. Indeed, at the end of the experiment (112 days), the concentration of most of the pesticides was close to complete degradation. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) analysis showed an evident modification of microbial diversity after the addition of fungicides. However, at the end of degradation process, no significant changes in the composition of microbial community were seen. In this specific substrate used in the biomixture, yeast flora and ascomycete filamentous fungi seemed to be involved in the degradation activity

Soil Bacterial Community and Earthworms: Hand-in-Hand First Responders to Pesticides

Earthworms and microbial communities represent a large fraction of soil living biomass and play an essential role in soil functioning. They are also important non-target organisms in soil and sub-lethal dose toxicity assessment represents a decisive step for the regulatory authorities to evaluate the collateral impact of pesticides. Here we present a study where we evaluated through High Throughput Sequencing (HTS) of 16S rDNA amplicons the sub-lethal impact of spinosyn and organophosphate based pesticides on soil bacteria with or without earthworms during 28d long experiment. We found that community composition were changing over time rapidly starting from the first day with the most significant impact on the 7th and 14th days. Formation of hierarchical clusters mainly as a function of time and then treatments in the presence/absence of earthworms was observed. Multivariate canonical correspondence analysis that assessed the pesticides, earthworm's presence and their combined impact at the beginning (1d) and at the end of the experiments (28d) marked further differences caused by various treatments at the beginning of the experiments and fade-out phenomenon as time passed by. Specific OTUs with previously reported pesticide degradation potential and earthworm gut microbiota presence were also singled out as the main drivers of change in soil microbial community. Overall, these findings clearly indicated the buffering effect earthworms had on the bacterial communities starting from earliest sampling (1d) until the final sampling (28d) as well as bacterial community members’ degradation response to pesticides over time

Ecotoxicological effects of a synthetic and a natural insecticide on earthworms and soil bacterial community

Earthworms and microbial communities are essential non-target soil organisms that are useful to assess the collateral impact of pesticides. The present paper reports three laboratory experiments performed to investigate the effects of sub-lethal doses of two insecticides, a biologically-derived (spinosad) and a synthetic organophosphate (chlorpyrifos), on earthworm Eisenia foetida and microorganisms in organic soil. The effects were studied in terms of behaviour, reproduction, survival, and DNA damage (comet assay) in earthworms, and Next Generation Sequencing-Illumina was employed to detect the changes in the microbial community. In addition, the influence of earthworms on the degradation kinetics of insecticides and on microbial diversity was evaluated. The weights, reproductive activity and behaviour of earthworms were particularly compromised and followed a dose-dependent trend in chlorpyrifos trials, where the insecticide’s degradation wasn’t affected by the presence of Eisenia foetida. However, earthworms contributed to spinosad’s metabolisation without significantly impacting their health. Early DNA damage was estimated in earthworms exposed to chlorpyrifos, while the impact of spinosad was significant only at the end of the toxicity test. The analysis on the microbial community indicated the buffering effect earthworms had on the bacterial communities starting from earliest sampling until the end of the trial, as well as bacterial community members’ degradation response to pesticides over time