472 research outputs found
Treatment of a Severe Pediatric Lyell Syndrome with Amniotic Membrane: Case Report and Histological Findings
Background:
Lyell Syndrome (TEN, Toxic epidermal necrolysis) represents a medical emergency particularly in pediatric patients in whom the massive skin damage can quickly lead to multi-organ dysfunction and death. Prompt restoration of the physiologic mucosal/cutaneous barrier is mandatory. The use of amniotic membranes has been described in the treatment of ophthalmic Lyell Syndrome, but its use has not yet been adopted for the management of larger cutaneous wounds.
Study Hypothesis:
Here we report the use of amniotic membranes in a pediatric case of severe Lyell Syndrome with complete skin surface, ocular and mucosal involvement with life threating presentation.
Methods:
A 7-year old female was admitted to our Burn Centre for severe cutaneous/mucosal exfoliation (100% Total body surface area, TBSA) as a result of an adverse reaction to ibuprofen administration. Supportive fluid administration, cardiac-pulmonary assistance and pain management were complemented by serial grafting of amniotic membranes on all affected areas to provide coverage of the exfoliated skin/mucosa. Biopsies were obtained to monitor histological skin changes.
Results:
The patient showed an excellent response to amniotic membrane treatment, with rapid restoration of mucosal and cutaneous layers in the grafted areas. This resulted in a decreased need for dressing changes, avoidance of additional surgeries and a reduced dependence on supportive therapy. Lower pain levels than usually expected led to a reduced need for narcotic pain medications and allowed for early physical rehabilitation and a short hospital stay. Histology confirmed evidence of topical immune-modulation in treated areas (reduction of inflammatory infiltrate).
Conclusion:
As we tested in numerously TEN and burn pediatric injuries Amniotic membranes with their regenerative and immune-modulatory effects may represent an life saving treatment even in the worst cases of pediatric Lyell syndrome
Active shape correction of a thin glass/plastic X-ray mirror
Optics for future X-ray telescopes will be characterized by very large
aperture and focal length, and will be made of lightweight materials like glass
or plastic in order to keep the total mass within acceptable limits. Optics
based on thin slumped glass foils are currently in use in the NuSTAR telescope
and are being developed at various institutes like INAF/OAB, aiming at
improving the angular resolution to a few arcsec HEW. Another possibility would
be the use of thin plastic foils, being developed at SAO and the Palermo
University. Even if relevant progresses in the achieved angular resolution were
recently made, a viable possibility to further improve the mirror figure would
be the application of piezoelectric actuators onto the non-optical side of the
mirrors. In fact, thin mirrors are prone to deform, so they require a careful
integration to avoid deformations and even correct forming errors. This however
offers the possibility to actively correct the residual deformation. Even if
other groups are already at work on this idea, we are pursuing the concept of
active integration of thin glass or plastic foils with piezoelectric patches,
fed by voltages driven by the feedback provided by X-rays, in intra-focal setup
at the XACT facility at INAF/OAPA. In this work, we show the preliminary
simulations and the first steps taken in this project
Design and advancement status of the Beam Expander Testing X-ray facility (BEaTriX)
The BEaTriX (Beam Expander Testing X-ray facility) project is an X-ray
apparatus under construction at INAF/OAB to generate a broad (200 x 60 mm2),
uniform and low-divergent X-ray beam within a small lab (6 x 15 m2). BEaTriX
will consist of an X-ray source in the focus a grazing incidence paraboloidal
mirror to obtain a parallel beam, followed by a crystal monochromation system
and by an asymmetrically-cut diffracting crystal to perform the beam expansion
to the desired size. Once completed, BEaTriX will be used to directly perform
the quality control of focusing modules of large X-ray optics such as those for
the ATHENA X-ray observatory, based on either Silicon Pore Optics (baseline) or
Slumped Glass Optics (alternative), and will thereby enable a direct quality
control of angular resolution and effective area on a number of mirror modules
in a short time, in full X-ray illumination and without being affected by the
finite distance of the X-ray source. However, since the individual mirror
modules for ATHENA will have an optical quality of 3-4 arcsec HEW or better,
BEaTriX is required to produce a broad beam with divergence below 1-2 arcsec,
and sufficient flux to quickly characterize the PSF of the module without being
significantly affected by statistical uncertainties. Therefore, the optical
components of BEaTriX have to be selected and/or manufactured with excellent
optical properties in order to guarantee the final performance of the system.
In this paper we report the final design of the facility and a detailed
performance simulation.Comment: Accepted paper, pre-print version. The finally published manuscript
can be downloaded from http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/12.223895
Development of mirrors made of chemically tempered glass foils for future X-ray telescopes
Thin slumped glass foils are considered good candidates for the realization
of future X-ray telescopes with large effective area and high spatial
resolution. However, the hot slumping process affects the glass strength, and
this can be an issue during the launch of the satellite because of the high
kinematical and static loads occurring during that phase. In the present work
we have investigated the possible use of Gorilla glass (produced by Corning), a
chemical tempered glass that, thanks to its strength characteristics, would be
ideal. The un-tempered glass foils were curved by means of an innovative hot
slumping technique and subsequently chemically tempered. In this paper we show
that the chemical tempering process applied to Gorilla glass foils does not
affect the surface micro-roughness of the mirrors. On the other end, the stress
introduced by the tempering process causes a reduction in the amplitude of the
longitudinal profile errors with a lateral size close to the mirror length. The
effect of the overall shape changes in the final resolution performance of the
glass mirrors was studied by simulating the glass foils integration with our
innovative approach based on glass reinforcing ribs. The preliminary tests
performed so far suggest that this approach has the potential to be applied to
the X-ray telescopes of the next generation.Comment: Accepted for publication in Experimental Astronomy. Author's accepted
manuscript posted to arXiv.org as permitted by Springer's Self-Archiving
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