[¹⁸F]FMCH PET/CT biomarkers and similarity analysis to refine the definition of oligometastatic prostate cancer

Background:The role of image-derived biomarkers in recurrent oligometastatic Prostate Cancer (PCa) is unexplored. This paper aimed to evaluate [18F]FMCH PET/CT radiomic analysis in patients with recurrent PCa after primary radical therapy. Specifically, we tested intra-patient lesions similarity in oligometastatic and plurimetastatic PCa, comparing the two most used definitions of oligometastatic disease.Methods:PCa patients eligible for [18F]FMCH PET/CT presenting biochemical failure after first-line curative treat-ments were invited to participate in this prospective observational trial. PET/CT images of 92 patients were visually and quantitatively analyzed. Each patient was classified as oligometastatic or plurimetastatic according to the total number of detected lesions (up to 3 and up to 5 or > 3 and > 5, respectively). Univariate and intra-patient lesions’ similarity analysis were performed.Results: [18F]FMCH PET/CT identified 370 lesions, anatomically classified as regional lymph nodes and distant metastases. Thirty-eight and 54 patients were designed oligometastatic and plurimetastatic, respectively, using a 3-lesion threshold. The number of oligometastic scaled up to 60 patients (thus 32 plurimetastatic patients) with a 5-lesion threshold. Similarity analysis showed high lesions’ heterogeneity. Grouping patients according to the number of metastases, patients with oligometastatic PCa defined with a 5-lesion threshold presented lesions heterogene-ity comparable to plurimetastic patients. Lesions within patients having a limited tumor burden as defined by three lesions were characterized by less heterogeneity.Conclusions:We found a comparable heterogeneity between patients with up to five lesions and plurimetastic patients, while patients with up to three lesions were less heterogeneous than plurimetastatic patients, featuring dif-ferent cells phenotypes in the two groups. Our results supported the use of a 3-lesion threshold to define oligometa-static PCa

Neonatal intensive care parent satisfaction: a multicenter study translating and validating the Italian EMPATHIC-N questionnaire

Background: In Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs), parent satisfaction and their experiences are fundamental to assess clinical practice and improve the quality of care delivered to infants and parents. Recently, a specific instrument, the EMpowerment of PArents in THe Intensive Care-Neonatology (EMPATHIC-N), has been developed in the Netherlands. This instrument investigated different domains of care in NICUs from a family-centered care perspective. In Italy, no rigorous instruments are available to evaluate parent satisfaction and experiences in NICU with family-centered care. The aim of this study was to translate and validate the EMPATHIC-N instrument into Italian language measuring parent satisfaction. Methods: A psychometric study was conducted in nine Italian NICUs. The hospitals were allocated across Italy: four in the North, four in Central region, one in the South. Parents whose infants were discharged from the Units were enrolled. Parents whose infants died were excluded. Results: Back-forward translation was conducted. Twelve parents reviewed the instrument to assess the cultural adaptation; none of the items fell below the cut-off of 80% agreement. A total of 186 parents of infants who were discharged from nine NICUs were invited to participate and 162 parents responded and returned the questionnaire (87%). The mean scores of the individual items varied between 4.3 and 5.9. Confirmatory factor analysis was performed and all factor loadings were statistically significant with the exception of item ‘Our cultural background was taken into account’. The items related to overall satisfaction showed a higher trend with mean values of 5.8 and 5.9. The Cronbach’s alpha’s (at domain level 0.73-0.92) and corrected item-total scale correlations revealed high reliability estimates. Conclusions: The Italian EMPATHIC-N showed to be a valid and reliable instrument measuring parent satisfaction in NICUs from a family-centered care perspective. Indeed, it had good psychometric properties, validity, and reliability. Furthermore, this instrument is fundamental for further research and internationally benchmarking

Organic emitters for solid state lighting

White organic light emitting diodes (WOLEDs) have gained considerable attention of academic and industrial research communities as promising alternative to incandescent lamps, fluorescent tubes and inorganic LEDs for low energy consumption lighting applications. WOLEDs are expected to become one of the next generation lighting sources because of their high color tunability and color quality, which can be easily achieved by proper chemical design of organic electroluminescent materials. Contrary to their inorganic counterparts, WOLEDs also bear the distinctive feature of being available as flexible and large area devices. Over the last decades, a lot of efforts have been spent on defining suitable strategies to highly efficient WOLEDs based on the use of properly tailored organic emitters. Here we survey the main chemical approaches to white electroluminescence from organic light emitting materials, highlighting strong and weak points of each strategy. Current research on new hybrid white light emitting devices based on the combination of inorganic LEDs and organic down color converters is also reviewed by some representative examples

Electroluminescent materials for white light emitting diodes

White organic light emitting diodes (WOLEDs) are promising devices for application in low energy consumption lighting since they combine the potentialities of high efficiency and inexpensive production with the appealing features of large surfaces emitting good quality white light. However, lifetime, performances and costs still have to be optimized to make WOLEDs commercially competitive as alternative lighting sources. Development of efficient and stable emitters plays a key role in the progress of WOLED technology. This tutorial review discusses the main approaches to obtain white electroluminescence with organic and organometallic emitters. Representative examples of each method are reported highlighting the most significant achievements together with open issues and challenges to be faced by future research

Organic materials for white electroluminescence

White organic light emitting diodes (WOLEDs) represent a promising alternative to incandescent or fluorescent lamps and inorganic LEDs for low energy consumption lighting applications. WOLEDs combine the potentialities of high white color quality and low production costs with the distinctive feature of being available also as flexible and large area devices. Moreover, fine control of white color quality can be easily achieved by proper chemical design of organic electroluminescent materials. Here we survey the main chemical approaches to white organic electroluminescence, highlighting strong and weak points of each strategy

Structural investigation of iridium phenylpyridine complexes functionalized with fluorine and sulfonyl substituents

Recent studies on the synthesis, properties and structural characterization of some Ir complexes with arylpyridine ligands have attracted considerable interest in both academic and industrial fields due to their use as phosphorescent materials in light emitting diodes (PHOLEDs)[1]. One of the main advantages offered by this class of Ir complexes is the possibility to careful control their light emission colour by suitably choosing the kind and position of substituent groups[2]. Latest literature also shows that the stereochemistry of these complexes has a significant influence on their photophysical properties and performance in devices[3]. Therefore, structural studies of these materials are very important in order to identify univocally the atomic arrangement of the compounds under investigation. In a recent publication, we have synthesized and spectroscopically characterized a series of heteroleptic iridium complexes functionalized with benzylsulfonyl groups and fluorine atoms in different positions of 2-phenylpyridine ligands. Investigation of the stereochemistry of these complexes has been firstly carried out by 1H and 13C and NMR spectroscopy of their iridium dichloro-bridged dimer precursors. Here, we report the crystallographic characterization of the iridium dimers (PhSO2-F2ArPy)4Ir2Cl2 and (PhSO2-FArPy)4Ir2Cl2 which sheds light on their stereochemistry, as well as on the stereochemistry of the corresponding heteroleptic iridium complexes. The crystal structures were determined by SCXRD. Both complexes crystalize in P space group and have a trans configuration of the arylpyridine ligands. The geometry parameters and the atomic coordination around central Ir3+ ion are similar in both complexes, each one showing a regular octahedral arrangement of the donor atoms

Biosilica/polydopamine/silver nanoparticles composites: New hybrid multifunctional heterostructures obtained by chemical modification of Thalassiosira weissflogii silica shells

Biosilica from living diatom microalgae has recently attracted the interest of the scientific community and found several applications in bio-nanotechnology. Among silica-maker organisms, diatom microalgae represent the most attractive marine microorganisms, featuring highly hierarchical, nanotextured and porous silica walls. These biologic structures, known as frustules are also chemically addressable via simple chemical synthesis. In this work, we propose new diatom-based hybrid materials consisting of biosilica extracted from living Thalassiosira weissflogii coated with polydopamine (PDA) films. The adhesion properties of the PDA were exploited to decorate the silica surface with silver nanoparticles. These multifunctional heterostructures can be useful for applications ranging from bioelectronics to biomedicine

Light emitting silica nanostructures by surface functionalization of diatom algae shells with a triethoxysilane-functionalized π-conjugated fluorophore

The functionalization of biosilica shells (frustules) of diatoms microalgae with a tailored luminescent molecule is a convenient, scalable and biotechnological approach for obtaining new light emitting silica nanostructures with promising applications in photonics. In particular, here we report the synthesis of a red emitting organic fluorophore and its covalent linking to the surface of mesoporous biosilica extracted from Thalassiosira weissflogii diatoms cultured in our laboratories. The organic dye has a conjugated skeleton composed of thienyl, benzothiadiazolyl and phenyl units and a peripheral triethoxysilyl group which enables its stable binding onto the frustules surface. The protocol to extract the biosilica shells from living diatoms preserving their natural ornate nanostructured morphology is also discussed

Multiple Routes to Smart Nanostructured Materials from Diatom Microalgae: A Chemical Perspective

Diatoms are unicellular photosynthetic microalgae, ubiquitously diffused in both marine and freshwater environments, which exist worldwide with more than 100 000 species, each with different morphologies and dimensions, but typically ranging from 10 to 200 μm. A special feature of diatoms is their production of siliceous micro- to nanoporous cell walls, the frustules, whose hierarchical organization of silica layers produces extraordinarily intricate pore patterns. Due to the high surface area, mechanical resistance, unique optical features, and biocompatibility, a number of applications of diatom frustules have been investigated in photonics, sensing, optoelectronics, biomedicine, and energy conversion and storage. Current progress in diatom-based nanotechnology relies primarily on the availability of various strategies to isolate frustules, retaining their morphological features, and modify their chemical composition for applications that are not restricted to those of the bare biosilica produced by diatoms. Chemical or biological methods that decorate, integrate, convert, or mimic diatoms' biosilica shells while preserving their structural features represent powerful tools in developing scalable, low-cost routes to a wide variety of nanostructured smart materials. Here, the different approaches to chemical modification as the basis for the description of applications relating to the different materials thus obtained are presented