Triple negative breast cancer: new perspectives for targeted therapies

Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease, encompassing a large number of entities showing different morphological features and having clinical behaviors. It has became apparent that this diversity may be justified by distinct patterns of genetic, epigenetic, and transcriptomic aberrations. The identification of gene-expression microarray-based characteristics has led to the identification of at least five breast cancer subgroups: luminal A, luminal B, normal breast-like, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2, and basal-like. Triple-negative breast cancer is a complex disease diagnosed by immunohistochemistry, and it is characterized by malignant cells not expressing estrogen receptors or progesterone receptors at all, and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2. Along with this knowledge, recent data show that triple-negative breast cancer has specific molecular features that could be possible targets for new biological targeted drugs. The aim of this article is to explore the use of new drugs in this particular setting, which is still associated with poor prognosis and high risk of distant recurrence and death

Forecasting Visitors’ behaviour in Crowded Museums

In this paper, we tackle the issue of measuring and understanding the visitors’ dynamics in a crowded museum in order to create and calibrate a predictive mathematical model. The model is then used as a tool to manage, control and optimize the fruition of the museum. Our contribution comes with one successful use case, the Galleria Borghese in Rome, Italy

Psychosocial combined with agonist maintenance treatments versus agonist maintenance treatments alone for treatment of opioid dependence.

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of any psychosocial plus any agonist maintenance treatment versus standard agonist treatment for opiate dependence in respect of retention in treatment, use of substances, health and social status. The abuse of opioid drugs and drug dependency are major health and social issues. Maintenance treatments with pharmacological agents can help to reduce the risks associated with the use of street drugs for drug addicts who are unable to abstain from drug use. Methadone is effective in retaining patients in treatment and reducing heroin use but re-addiction remains as a substantial challenge. Opiate addicts often have psychiatric problems such as anxiety and depression and may not be able to cope with stress. Psychosocial interventions including psychiatric care, psychotherapy, counselling, and social work services are commonly offered as part of the maintenance programs. Psychological support varies from structured psychotherapies such as cognitive behavioural therapy and supportive-expressive therapy to behavioural interventions and contingency management. This review addressed whether a specific psychosocial intervention provides any additional benefit to pharmacological maintenance treatment. The control intervention was a maintenance program, which routinely offers counselling sessions in addition to pharmacological treatment. Present evidence suggests that adding psychosocial support does not change the effectiveness of retention in treatment and opiate use during treatment. Findings on retention in treatment were for 12 different psychosocial interventions including contingency management. These conclusions are based on 34 randomised trials involving 3777 opiate addicts, some 73% of whom were male. All but three studies were conducted in the USA. The previous version of this review showed a reduction in opiate use during treatment that was no longer the case with the addition of new studies and the same is for the number of participants abstinent at the end of follow up. The psychosocial interventions are likely to require rigorous assessment of any changes in emotional, interpersonal, vocational and physical health areas of life functioning that may indirectly reduce drug use over longer periods of time

Efficacy and safety of pharmacological interventions for the treatment of the Alcohol Withdrawal Syndrome.

Alcohol abuse and dependence can cause serious health problems as well as interpersonal, social, interpersonal and legal consequences. Dependence on alcohol is evident by reduced control over drinking, tolerance to alcohol and withdrawal symptoms. Alcohol withdrawal syndrome develops after stopping or reducing heavy and prolonged alcohol use. The most common symptoms include sweating, a fast pulse rate, tremor, insomnia, nausea or vomiting, transient hallucinations or illusions, agitation, anxiety and seizures. These are the result of changes in the central nervous system in an attempt to maintain normal function with alcohol consumption. Different types of medications are used to safely reduce the severity of withdrawal and the abuse of alcohol. Cochrane reviews of randomised controlled trials that examined the effectiveness and safety of medications for alcohol withdrawal syndrome were included in this overview. Participants in the review studies varied in age, gender, nationality, severity of symptoms and treatment as outpatients or inpatients. Five reviews, 114 studies, 7333 participants, were included. We considered the efficacy of the medication on alcohol withdrawal seizures, adverse events as a measure of safety and acceptability of the treatment as dropouts from the study. These outcomes were considered in 72 of the 114 studies. The treatments used were sedative benzodiazepines, anticonvulsants, baclofen, GHB and PAN. Baclofen and GHB mimic alcohol effects and can rapidly reduce symptoms. PAN (psychotropic analgesic nitrous oxide) involves administering low levels of nitrous oxide and oxygen gases so that the individual remains conscious and coherent. Comparing the five treatments with placebo, benzodiazepines performed better for seizures (three studies, 324 participants, moderate quality of evidence). This was the only treatment with statistically significant findings. Data on potential harms were sparse and fragmented in these studies. Benzodiazepines also performed better than antipsychotics for seizures (4 studies, 633 participants, high quality of evidence). For the majority of our results, further research is likely to have an important impact on confidence in the estimate of effect. We assessed the quality of the evidence in the included reviews using GRADE, which looks at the quality of evidence for each outcome, taking into consideration the magnitude of the effect, the relevance of the data to the clinical question being asked, the sample size in the relevant trials, the methodological quality of the trials and the consistency of the findings

Psychosocial and pharmacological treatments versus pharmacological treatments for opioid detoxification.

Different pharmacological approaches aimed at opioid detoxification are effective. Nevertheless a majority of patients relapse to heroin use, and relapses are a substantial problem in the rehabilitation of heroin users. Some studies have suggested that the sorts of symptoms which are most distressing to addicts during detoxification are psychological rather than physiological symptoms associated with the withdrawal syndrome. Objectives: To evaluate the effectiveness of any psychosocial plus any pharmacological interventions versus any pharmacological alone for opioid detoxification, in helping patients to complete the treatment, reduce the use of substances and improve health and social status

Benzodiazepines for alcohol withdrawal.

Objectives: To evaluate the effectiveness and safety of benzodiazepines in the treatment of alcohol withdrawal

Anticonvulsants for alcohol withdrawal.

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness and safety of anticonvulsants in the treatment of alcohol withdrawal