Evaluation of the role of conventional and tissue doppler imaging echocardiography in detection of acute cardiac allograft rejection in heart transplant recipients

Background: Endomyocardial Biopsy (EMB) is the gold standard test for diagnosis of acute allograft cardiac rejection. Objectives: The present study aimed to assess the role of echocardiographic parameters in discriminating patients with and without evidence of acute cardiac allograft rejection. Materials and Methods: In the present cross-sectional study, using convenience sampling, 63 EMB specimens were collected from the patients who had undergone biatrial orthotropic cardiac transplantation. The mean age of the recipients and donors was 30.46 ± 9.49 and 24.55 ± 7.64 years, respectively. There were 51(81) male recipients and 39(62) male donors. Echocardiographic examination was performed within the 24 hours of EMB. The data were entered into the SPSS statistical software, version 19 and were analyzed by chi-square test, student�s t-test, and one-way ANOVA as appropriated. All the data were two-tailed and P < 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. Results: Among the 63 EMB specimens evaluated in the present study, mild and moderate acute rejections were seen in 19(30) and 5(8) cases, respectively. On Doppler examination, the three groups (without rejection, with mild rejection, and with moderate acute rejection) were significantly different only regarding trans-tricuspid E wave (P = 0.040). Pulsed-wave Tissue Doppler Imaging (TDI) also revealed a significant difference between the patients with and without allograft rejection regarding early diastolic tricuspid and mitral annular motion velocities (P = 0.005 and P = 0.02, respectively). Conclusions: It seems that echocardiographic parameters, including TDI, might be adjunct to, rather than substitution for, EMB findings for early diagnosis of acute allograft rejection. © 2016, Iranian Cardiovascular Research Journal. All right reserved

Is there an appropriate strategy for treating co-morbid irritable bowel syndrome and bladder pain syndrome?

Introduction: Two of the most frequent components of chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CPPS) are irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and bladder pain syndrome (BPS), characterized by considerable overlapping symptoms and pathophysiology. Currently, its management is challenging meaning there is high the demand for novel efficient therapeutics to aid patient care and to tackle the socioeconomic burden of IBS and BPS. As there are presently no sufficient treatment strategies, identifying the mechanisms that result in their main symptoms is the opportunity for developing appropriate therapies. Areas covered: Herein, the authors explore the potential common treatment strategies for co-morbid IBS and BPS and highlight the absolute need for further research of these deliberating clinical entities. Expert opinion: In the future, the authors summise that the discovery of predictive molecular biomarkers combined with clinical phenotypic categorization will likely allow for more definitive differentiation of patients and thus for better treatment options. Furthermore, it has been suggested that effective IBS treatment strategies would be of great value to co-morbid IBS and BPS therapy. © 2018, © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor &amp; Francis Group

High Efficiency Perovskite‐Silicon Tandem Solar Cells: Effect of Surface Coating versus Bulk Incorporation of 2D Perovskite

Mixed-dimensional perovskite solar cells combining 3D and 2D perovskites have recently attracted wide interest owing to improved device efficiency and stability. Yet, it remains unclear which method of combining 3D and 2D perovskites works best to obtain a mixed-dimensional system with the advantages of both types. To address this, different strategies of combining 2D perovskites with a 3D perovskite are investigated, namely surface coating and bulk incorporation. It is found that through surface coating with different aliphatic alkylammonium bulky cations, a Ruddlesden–Popper “quasi-2D” perovskite phase is formed on the surface of the 3D perovskite that passivates the surface defects and significantly improves the device performance. In contrast, incorporating those bulky cations into the bulk induces the formation of the pure 2D perovskite phase throughout the bulk of the 3D perovskite, which negatively affects the crystallinity and electronic structure of the 3D perovskite framework and reduces the device performance. Using the surface-coating strategy with n-butylammonium bromide to fabricate semitransparent perovskite cells and combining with silicon cells in four-terminal tandem configuration, 27.7% tandem efficiency with interdigitated back contact silicon bottom cells (size-unmatched) and 26.2% with passivated emitter with rear locally diffused silicon bottom cells is achieved in a 1 cm2 size-matched tandem.This work was supported by the Australian Government through the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA). T.D. acknowledges the financial support of a Postdoc Fellowship from the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics (ACAP). T.W. is the recipient of an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (project number FT180100302) funded by the Australian Government. Furthermore, the authors would like to gratefully acknowledge the financial support by the Helmholtz Association through the HYIG of U.W.P. (FKZ VH-NG-1148), the project PEROSEED (FKZ ZT-0024), the Helmholtz Energy Materials Foundry (HEMF), the Recruitment Initiative of B.S.R. as well as the Karlsruhe School of Optics & Photonics (KSOP)