Electrochemical pretreatments of carbon paper and their effect on the electrodeposition of metallic nanostructures

Gas diffusion electrodes (GDEs) represent a fundamental element for the development of gaseous electrochemical cells like water electrolysis reactors and fuel cells. Various technologies and materials are employed in order to obtain a conductive, stable and gas permeable structure. Among them, carbon-based structures such as carbon paper are widely used: their composition allows the diffusion of gaseous reagents and products and simultaneously does not permit the flooding of the gas-diffusion structure by aqueous electrolytes. However, the hydrophobicity of this material may represent a drawback to water-based electrode synthesis like galvanic deposition, and various chemical or thermal pretreatments were developed in the last decades. A new kind of pre-treatment based on electrical oxidation of the carbon paper surface is here described and evaluated. The electro-oxidative method allows a rapid and localized pre-treatment of the carbon paper, avoiding the use of highly reactive chemicals or long thermal treatments, reducing treatment wastes, time loss and electrical consumption. Surface wettability of the carbon paper before and after pretreatment was compared by contact angle analysis. Pre-treated and virgin carbon paper were subsequently electroplated from a copper deposition bath and deposition morphologies were compared, in order to establish the effect of the pre-treatment. Electroplated supports were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) in order to analyze both micro and nanomorphology of the metallic structure

Long-Term Drug Survival and Effectiveness of Secukinumab in Patients with Moderate to Severe Chronic Plaque Psoriasis: 42-Month Results from the SUPREME 2.0 Study

Purpose: SUPREME, a phase IIIb study conducted in Italy, demonstrated safety and high efficacy of secukinumab for up to 72 weeks in patients with moderate-to-severe plaque-type psoriasis. SUPREME 2.0 study aimed to provide real-world data on the long-term drug survival and effectiveness of secukinumab beyond 72 weeks. Patients and Methods: SUPREME 2.0 is a retrospective observational chart review study conducted in patients previously enrolled in SUPREME study. After the end of the SUPREME study, eligible patients continued treatment as per clinical practice, and their effectiveness and drug survival data were retrieved from medical charts. Results: Of the 415 patients enrolled in the SUPREME study, 297 were included in SUPREME 2.0; of which, 210 (70.7%) continued secukinumab treatment throughout the 42-month observation period. Patients in the biologic-naïve cohort had higher drug survival than those in the biologic-experienced cohort (74.9% vs 61.7%), while HLA-Cw6–positive and HLA-Cw6–negative patients showed similar drug survival (69.3% and 71.9%). After 42 months, Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI) 90 was achieved by 79.6% of patients overall; with a similar proportion of biologic-naïve and biologic-experienced patients achieving PASI90 (79.8% and 79.1%). The mean absolute PASI score reduced from 21.94 to 1.38 in the overall population, 21.90 to 1.24 in biologic-naïve and 22.03 to 1.77 in biologic-experienced patients after 42 months. The decrease in the absolute PASI score was comparable between HLACw6–positive and HLA–Cw6-negative patients. The baseline Dermatology Life Quality Index scores also decreased in the overall patients (10.5 to 2.32) and across all study sub-groups after 42 months. Safety was consistent with the known profile of secukinumab, with no new findings. Conclusion: In this real-world cohort study, secukinumab showed consistently high long-term drug survival and effectiveness with a favourable safety profile

Dermoscopic evaluation of nodular melanoma

Importance: Nodular melanoma (NM) is a rapidly progressing potentially lethal skin tumor for which early diagnosis is critical

Desmoplastic melanoma: a diagnostic challenge

Desmoplastic melanoma (DM) accounts for less than 4% of melanoma (M) and usually affects sun-damaged skin of elderly patients. It can arise ex novo or in association with other M subtypes. The diagnosis of DM is difficult because it lacks of specific clinical and histopathological features.The prognosis of DM is usually better than other cutaneous M, because DM has a higher tendency for local growth and a lower number of nodal metastases

Electrodeposited Copper Nanocatalysts for CO2 Electroreduction: Effect of Electrodeposition Conditions on Catalysts’ Morphology and Selectivity

Catalytic electroreduction of carbon dioxide represents a promising technology both to reduce CO2 emissions and to store electrical energy from discontinuous sources. In this work, electrochemical deposition of copper on to a gas-diffusion support was tested as a scalable and versatile nanosynthesis technique for the production of catalytic electrodes for CO2 electroreduction. The effect of deposition current density and additives (DAT, DTAB, PEG) on the catalysts’ structure was evaluated. The selectivity of the synthesized catalysts towards the production of CO was evaluated by analyzing the gaseous products obtained using the catalysts as cathodes in electroreduction tests. Catalyst morphology was deeply influenced by the deposition additives. Copper nanospheres, hemispherical microaggregates of nanowires, and shapeless structures were electrodeposited in the presence of dodecyltrimethylammonium bromide (DTAB), 3,5-diamino-1,2,4-triazole (DAT) and polyethylene glycol (PEG), respectively. The effect of the deposition current density on catalyst morphology was also observed and it was found to be additive-specific. DTAB nanostructured electrodes showed the highest selectivity towards CO production, probably attributable to a higher specific surface area. EDX and XPS analysis disclosed the presence of residual DAT and DTAB uniformly distributed onto the catalysts structure. No significant effects of electrodeposition current density and Cu(I)/Cu(II) ratio on the selectivity towards CO were found. In particular, DTAB and DAT electrodes yielded comparable selectivity, although they were characterized by the highest and lowest Cu(I)/Cu(II) ratio, respectively

IL-38 has an anti-inflammatory action in psoriasis and its expression correlates with disease severity and therapeutic response to anti-IL-17A treatment

Contains fulltext : 198306.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access

Effectiveness of risankizumab in the treatment of palmoplantar psoriasis: a 52-week Italian real-life experience

Background: Data on the treatment of palmoplantar psoriasis (PP) are scarce, representing a therapeutic challenge. This study aims to assess the efficacy and safety of risankizumab in a population of patients with psoriasis with a palmoplantar involvement, over a 52- week treatment period. Methods: We performed a retrospective analysis in a cohort of patients with PP, with or without involvement of other skin sites. Palmoplantar Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (ppPASI) was assessed at baseline and after 4, 16, 28 and 52 weeks, to evaluate the PP severity. Results: Sixteen patients were enrolled. The rates of ppPASI90 responses constantly increased during the period of observation and were 18.7%, 62.2%, 75.0% and 81.2% at weeks 4, 16, 28 and 52, respectively. Only two patients suspended treatment because of ineffectiveness at week 16. Conclusion: Our data from a series of 16 patients reveal that risankizumab could represent an effective and safe therapeutic choice in patients with PP

Interleukin (IL)-17/IL-36 axis participates to the crosstalk between endothelial cells and keratinocytes during inflammatory skin responses.

In inflammatory skin conditions, such as psoriasis, vascular enlargement is associated with endothelial cell proliferation, release of cytokines and adhesion molecule expression. Interleukin (IL)-17A is a pro-inflammatory cytokine mainly secreted by T helper-17 cells that is critically involved in psoriasis pathogenesis. IL-36α, IL-36β and IL-36γ are also inflammatory cytokines up-regulated in psoriasis and induced by various stimuli, including IL-17A. In this study, we found that human keratinocytes are the main source of IL-36, in particular of IL-36γ. This cytokine was strongly induced by IL-17A and, together with IL-17A, efficiently activated human dermal microvascular endothelial cells (HDMECs), which expressed both IL-17 and IL-36 receptors. Both IL-36γ and IL-17A induced cell proliferation through specific molecular cascades involving ERK1/2 only or ERK1/2, STAT3 and NF-κB, respectively. We highlighted the intense IL-17A- and IL-36γ -dependent interplay between keratinocytes and HDMECs, likely active in the psoriatic lesions and leading to the establishment of a cytokine network responsible for the development and maintenance of the inflamed state. IL-17A or IL-36γ showed in HDMECs a synergic activity with TNF-α by potently inducing inflammatory cytokine/chemokine release and ICAM-1 expression. We also investigated the involvement of IL-36γ and VEGF-A, substantially reduced in lesional skin of psoriatic patients pharmacologically treated with the anti-IL-17A antibody Secukinumab. Importantly, keratinocyte-derived IL-36γ represented an additional pro-angiogenic mediator of IL-17A. We observed that keratinocyte-derived VEGF-A influenced proliferation but did not act on expression of adhesion molecules in HDMECs. On the other hand, inhibition of IL-36γ released by IL-17A-treated keratinocytes impaired either proliferation or ICAM-1 expression both in HDMECs and in an in vivo murine model of psoriasis. Taken together, our data demonstrated that IL-17A and IL-36γ are highly involved in endothelial cells/keratinocytes crosstalk in inflammatory skin conditions