Workgroup Report: Incorporating In Vitro Alternative Methods for Developmental Neurotoxicity into International Hazard and Risk Assessment Strategies

This is the report of the first workshop on Incorporating In Vitro Alternative Methods for Developmental Neurotoxicity (DNT) Testing into International Hazard and Risk Assessment Strategies, held in Ispra, Italy, on 19–21 April 2005. The workshop was hosted by the European Centre for the Validation of Alternative Methods (ECVAM) and jointly organized by ECVAM, the European Chemical Industry Council, and the Johns Hopkins University Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing. The primary aim of the workshop was to identify and catalog potential methods that could be used to assess how data from in vitro alternative methods could help to predict and identify DNT hazards. Working groups focused on two different aspects: a) details on the science available in the field of DNT, including discussions on the models available to capture the critical DNT mechanisms and processes, and b) policy and strategy aspects to assess the integration of alternative methods in a regulatory framework. This report summarizes these discussions and details the recommendations and priorities for future work

Guideline for the surgical treatment of atrial fibrillation.

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common sustained cardiac arrhythmia and its prevalence is approximately 1-2% of the general population, but higher with increasing age and in patients with concomitant heart disease. The Cox-maze III procedure was a groundbreaking development and remains the surgical intervention with the highest cure rate, but due to its technical difficulty alternative techniques have been developed to create the lesions sets. The field is fast moving and there are now multiple energy sources, multiple potential lesion sets and even multiple guidelines addressing the issues surrounding the surgical treatment of AF both for patients undergoing this concomitantly with other cardiac surgical procedures and also as stand-alone procedures either via sternotomy or via videothoracoscopic techniques. The aim of this document is to bring together all major guidelines in this area into one resource for clinicians interested in surgery for AF. Where we felt that guidance was lacking, we also reviewed the evidence and provided summaries in those areas. We conclude that AF surgery is an effective intervention for patients with all types of AF undergoing concomitant cardiac surgery to reduce the incidence of AF, as demonstrated in multiple randomized studies. There is some evidence that this translates into reduced stroke risk, reduced heart failure risk and longer survival. In addition, symptomatic patients with AF may be considered for surgery after failed catheter intervention or even as an alternative to catheter intervention where either catheter ablation is contraindicated or by patient choice

D6 and the atypical chemokine receptor family: Novel regulators of immune and inflammatory processes

Chemokines are key regulators of leukocyte migration and play important roles in a number of physiological and pathological immune and inflammatory contexts. In addition to the classical signalling chemokine receptors there has emerged, recently, a new subclass of atypical chemokine receptors. This subfamily is characterised by an apparent lack of signalling and, in some cases, by an ability to internalise and degrade chemokine ligands. This review describes the family of atypical chemokine receptors with particular emphasis on the D6 receptor. The in vitro and in vivo biology of D6 is described, which indicates that D6 is active as a scavenger of inflammatory CC-chemokines and appears to play essential roles in the regulation of inflammatory responses