Efficacy and safety of fenoldopam for the treatment of hypertensive crises in children with kidney disease: a retrospective study.

Background: Hypertensive crises in children represent critical medical situations characterized by severe hypertension and potential organ damage. Fenoldopam, a dopaminergic medication, offers a viable therapeutic option for managing such clinical scenarios. We aimed to evaluate efficacy and safety of fenoldopam in the management of hypertensive urgencies and emergencies.

Cutaneous melanoma in older patients.

Background: In industrialized countries, the aging population is steadily rising. The incidence of cutaneous malignant melanoma (CMM) is highest in old people. This study focuses on the clinicopathological profile of CMM and indicators of diagnostic-therapeutic performance in older patients.

Indicators of clinical performance in monitoring soft tissue sarcoma management: a population-based perspective.

Background: Soft tissue sarcomas (STS) are rare malignancies which prognosis varies significantly by primary site, histological subtype, and tumor stage. Their low incidence, and the complexity of their clinico-pathological characteristics demand standardized, cancer-tailored diagnostics and therapies managed at high-volume, multidisciplinary care centers. This study evaluates the quality of STS management in north-east Italy (Veneto Region) through a list of defined clinical indicators.

The Prevalent Comorbidome at the Onset of Psoriasis Diagnosis.

Introduction: Psoriasis (PsO) is currently regarded as a systemic inflammatory disease with a growing burden of post-diagnosis associated comorbidities. To determine the initial burden of comorbiditis we evaluated the comorbidome at PsO onset.

Methods: In a matched case-control study, we extracted data on 57,228 patients and 125 morbidities from the Clalit Health Services Israeli insurance database.

Nadir creatinine as a predictor of renal outcomes in PUVs: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Posterior urethral valves (PUVs) represent the most severe pediatric obstructive uropathy, responsible for chronic renal failure in up to 65% of cases and progression to end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) in about 8%-21% of patients. Unfortunately, renal outcomes have poorly improved over time. The key point is to identify patients at risk; thus, several prenatal and postnatal prognostic factors have been analyzed to improve clinical outcomes.

Impact of antigen test target failure and testing strategies on the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 variants.

Population testing remains central to COVID-19 control and surveillance, with countries increasingly using antigen tests rather than molecular tests. Here we describe a SARS-CoV-2 variant that escapes N antigen tests due to multiple disruptive amino-acid substitutions in the N protein. By fitting a multistrain compartmental model to genomic and epidemiological data, we show that widespread antigen testing in the Italian region of Veneto favored the undetected spread of the antigen-escape variant compared to the rest of Italy.

Direct Costs of Care for Adults with Soft Tissue Sarcomas: A Population-Based Study.

The clinical treatment of soft tissue sarcoma (STS) has evolved substantially over the last decade. This population-based cohort study based on real-world data included all incidental STS recorded by the Veneto Cancer Registry in 2017. Data on hospital admissions, emergency department and outpatient visits, drug prescriptions, and use of medical devices within two years from STS diagnosis were obtained from administrative databases.

Neutralising reactivity against SARS-CoV-2 Delta and Omicron variants by vaccination and infection history.

Background: The continuous emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VOC) with immune escape properties, such as Delta (B.1.617.

Sex Differences in Cutaneous Melanoma: Incidence, Clinicopathological Profile, Survival, and Costs.

This study aims to provide a comprehensive overview of sex-related characteristics of cutaneous malignant melanoma (CMM), with special reference to its incidence, clinicopathological profile, overall survival, and treatment-related costs. This retrospective cohort study included all 1,279 CMM patients who were registered in 2015 in the Veneto Cancer Registry (a population-based registry including all 4,900,000 regional residents). The by-sex comparisons included tumor stage and site, histological subtype, and other clinical-pathological variables.

The Prognostic Value of Low Muscle Mass in Pancreatic Cancer Patients: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Low muscle mass is associated with reduced survival in patients with different cancer types. The interest in preoperative sarcopenia and pancreatic cancer has risen in the last decade as muscle mass loss seems to be associated with poorer survival, higher postoperative morbidity, and mortality. The aim of the present study was to review the literature to compare the impact of low muscle mass on the outcomes of patients undergoing surgery for pancreatic adenocarcinoma.

SARS-CoV-2 antibody dynamics and transmission from community-wide serological testing in the Italian municipality of Vo'.

In February and March 2020, two mass swab testing campaigns were conducted in Vo', Italy. In May 2020, we tested 86% of the Vo' population with three immuno-assays detecting antibodies against the spike and nucleocapsid antigens, a neutralisation assay and Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). Subjects testing positive to PCR in February/March or a serological assay in May were tested again in November.

Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Surgical Treatment for Isolated Local Recurrence of Pancreatic Cancer.

Purpose: To perform a systematic review and meta-analysis on the outcome of surgical treatment for isolated local recurrence of pancreatic cancer.

Methods: A systematic review and meta-analysis based on Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines was conducted in PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science.

Results: Six studies concerning 431 patients with recurrent pancreatic cancer met the inclusion criteria and were included in the analysis: 176 underwent redo surgery, and 255 received non-surgical treatments.

Systematic review and meta-analysis of surgical drain management after the diagnosis of postoperative pancreatic fistula after pancreaticoduodenectomy: draining-tract-targeted works better than standard management.

Purpose: Drains' role after pancreaticoduodenectomy (PD) is debated by proponents of no drain, draining selected cases, and early drain removal. The aim of the study was to assess the effect of "standard" and "draining-tract-targeted" management of abdominal drains still in situ after diagnosing a postoperative pancreatic fistula (POPF).

Methods: PubMed and Scopus were searched for "pancreaticoduodenectomy or pancreatoduodenectomy or duodenopancreatectomy," "Whipple," "proximal pancreatectomy," "pylorus-preserving pancreatectomy," and "postoperative pancreatic fistula or POPF.

Suppression of a SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in the Italian municipality of Vo'.

On 21 February 2020, a resident of the municipality of Vo', a small town near Padua (Italy), died of pneumonia due to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. This was the first coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19)-related death detected in Italy since the detection of SARS-CoV-2 in the Chinese city of Wuhan, Hubei province. In response, the regional authorities imposed the lockdown of the whole municipality for 14 days.

The Role of Positron Emission Tomography in Clinical Management of Intraductal Papillary Mucinous Neoplasms of the Pancreas.

Intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms (IPMNs) of the pancreas represent a heterogeneous group of tumors, increasingly diagnosed in clinical practice. An early differential diagnosis between malignant and benign lesions is crucial to patient management and the choice of surgery or observation. The therapeutic approach is currently based on a patient's clinical, biochemical, and morphological characteristics.

G-quadruplex forming sequences in the genome of all known human viruses: A comprehensive guide.

G-quadruplexes are non-canonical nucleic-acid structures that control transcription, replication, and recombination in organisms. G-quadruplexes are present in eukaryotes, prokaryotes, and viruses. In the latter, mounting evidence indicates their key biological activity.

Nonparametric change point estimation for survival distributions with a partially constant hazard rate.

We present a new method for estimating a change point in the hazard function of a survival distribution assuming a constant hazard rate after the change point and a decreasing hazard rate before the change point. Our method is based on fitting a stump regression to p values for testing hazard rates in small time intervals. We present three real data examples describing survival patterns of severely ill patients, whose excess mortality rates are known to persist far beyond hospital discharge.

Metastatic tumors to the pancreas: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Introduction: Metastases to the pancreas from other primary tumors are increasingly recognized in clinical practice, but the real role of surgery remains unclear. This study was designated to evaluate by a meta-analytic approach the results of surgical treatment for the most common malignancies metastasizing to the pancreas.

Evidence Acquisition: MEDLINE, PubMED, Scopus and Web of Sciences were searched from January 2000 to December 2015.

Cross-Clustering: A Partial Clustering Algorithm with Automatic Estimation of the Number of Clusters.

Four of the most common limitations of the many available clustering methods are: i) the lack of a proper strategy to deal with outliers; ii) the need for a good a priori estimate of the number of clusters to obtain reasonable results; iii) the lack of a method able to detect when partitioning of a specific data set is not appropriate; and iv) the dependence of the result on the initialization. Here we propose Cross-clustering (CC), a partial clustering algorithm that overcomes these four limitations by combining the principles of two well established hierarchical clustering algorithms: Ward's minimum variance and Complete-linkage. We validated CC by comparing it with a number of existing clustering methods, including Ward's and Complete-linkage.

Influence of increasing BMI on insulin sensitivity and secretion in normotolerant men and women of a wide age span.

The impact of sex and age on glucose metabolism in the development of overweight/obesity is a matter of debate. We hypothesized that insulin sensitivity (IS) and β-cell function (BF) in a normal white population will differ between males and females and aimed to evaluate the possible effects of BMI and age on metabolic parameters of both sexes. This study is a cross-sectional analysis of the general community.

Cost-effective experimental design to support modeling of concentration-response functions.

Modeling concentration-response function became extremely popular in ecotoxicology during the last decade. Indeed, modeling allows determining the total response pattern of a given substance. However, reliable modeling is consuming in term of data, which is in contradiction with the current trend in ecotoxicology, which aims to reduce, for cost and ethical reasons, the number of data produced during an experiment.

Effects of GSM cellular phones on human hearing: the European project "GUARD".

The European multicenter project named GUARD involved nine centers and aimed to assess potential changes in auditory function as a consequence of exposure to low-intensity electromagnetic fields (EMFs) produced by GSM cellular phones. Participants were healthy young adults without any evidence of hearing or ear disorders. Auditory function was assessed immediately before and after exposure to EMFs, and only the exposed ear was tested.