Cardiovascular diseases remain a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, requiring innovative therapeutic strategies. This project explores a nano-pharmaceutical approach to enhance the efficacy of cardiovascular drugs, focusing on carvedilol and curcumin. These agents, known for their potential cardiovascular benefits, are encapsulated within Soluplus® micelles to form a novel drug delivery system.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLiquid biopsies-tests that detect circulating tumor cellular components in the bloodstream-have the potential to transform cancer by reducing health inequities in screening, diagnostics, and monitoring. Today, liquid biopsies are being used to guide treatment choices for patients and monitor for cancer recurrence, and promising work in multi-cancer early detection is ongoing. However, without awareness of the barriers to adoption of this new technology and a willingness to build mitigation efforts into the implementation of widespread liquid biopsy testing, the communities that could most benefit may be the last to access and use them.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: No study has evaluated the effect of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection on the wide spectrum of complications affecting patients with thalassemia.
Objectives: This multicenter study prospectively assessed the relationship of HCV infection with diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular complications in patients with thalassemia major (TM).
Methods: We considered 1057 TM patients (539 females; 29.
Background: In transfusion-dependent thalassemia patients who started regular transfusions in early childhood, we prospectively and longitudinally evaluated the efficacy on pancreatic iron of a combined deferiprone (DFP) + desferrioxamine (DFO) regimen versus either oral iron chelator as monotherapy over a follow-up of 18 months.
Materials And Methods: We selected patients consecutively enrolled in the Extension-Myocardial Iron Overload in Thalassemia network who received a combined regimen of DFO+DFP (No.=28) or DFP (No.
Aims: We measured myocardial T2 values by a segmental approach in thalassaemia major (TM) patients, comparing such values against T2* values for the detection of myocardial iron overload (MIO), evaluating their potential in detecting subclinical inflammation, and correlating with clinical status.
Methods And Results: One-hundred and sixty-six patients (102 females, 38.29 ± 11.
Background: Until recently, multi-agent chemotherapy (CT) was the standard of care for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Clinical trials have confirmed benefits in overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival with immunotherapy (IO) compared to CT. This study compares real-world treatment patterns and outcomes between CT and IO administrations in second-line (2L) settings for patients with stage IV NSCLC.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe evaluated frequency, pattern, and associations of renal iron accumulation in sickle/β-thalassemia. Thirty-three sickle/β-thalassemia patients (36.5 ± 14.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Magn Reson Imaging
February 2023
Background: MRI represents the most established liver iron content (LIC) evaluation approach by estimation of liver T2* value, but it is dependent on the choice of the measurement region and the software used for image analysis.
Purpose: To develop a deep-learning method for unsupervised classification of LIC from magnitude T2* multiecho MR images.
Study Type: Retrospective.
Objectives: Evidence about the cross-talk between iron, glucose metabolism, and cardiac disease is increasing. We aimed to explore the link of pancreatic iron by Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) with glucose metabolism and cardiac complications (CC) in sickle cell disease (SCD) patients.
Methods: We considered 70 SCD patients consecutively enrolled in the Extension-Myocardial Iron Overload in Thalassemia Network.
Aims: Use of comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP) in metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) is limited. We estimated impacts of expanded 1 L CGP, using the Tempus xT test, on detection of actionable alterations and testing budgets in a modeled US health plan over two-years.
Materials And Methods: A decision analytic model was developed to estimate the impact of replacing 20% of usual testing (a mix of CGP and non-CGP) with Tempus xT CGP.
Expert Opin Drug Saf
November 2022
Background: Hydroxyurea (HU) has been widely used in clinical practice to manage patients with non-transfusion dependent thalassemia (NTDT). Few data are available about the effects of its administration in Italian patients. We assessed hematological and non-hematological outcomes following short- and long-term exposure to HU.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a worldwide distributed hereditary red cell disorder characterized by recurrent acute vaso-occlusive crises (VOCs and anemia). Gold standard treatments are hydroxycarbamide (HC) and/or different red blood cell (RBC) transfusion regimens to limit disease progression. Here, we report a retrospective study on 1,579 SCD patients (median age 23 years; 802 males/777 females), referring to 34 comprehensive Italian centers for hemoglobinopathies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn thalassemia major, pancreatic iron was demonstrated as a powerful predictor not only for the alterations of glucose metabolism but also for cardiac iron, fibrosis, and complications, supporting a profound link between pancreatic iron and heart disease. We determined for the first time the prevalence of pancreatic iron overload (IO) in thalassemia intermedia (TI) and systematically explored the link between pancreas T2* values and glucose metabolism and cardiac outcomes. We considered 221 beta-TI patients (53.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnviron Sci Policy
October 2021
Climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic share many similarities. However, in the past months, concerns have increased about the fact the health emergency has put on hold during the pandemic many climate adaptation and mitigation policies. We focus our attention on understanding the role of the recent health emergency on the transmission of information related to climate change, jointly with other socio-economic variables, social norms, and cultural dimensions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground Transition from () and ( and ) for hospital discharge data was mandated for US hospitals on October 1, 2015. We examined the volume of patients receiving thrombolysis in ischemic stroke (IS) identified using codes within this transition period in the 2015 to 2016 National Inpatient Sample, a weighted 20% sample of all inpatient US hospital discharges. Methods and Results During the period, 2 case identification strategies were used.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe accumulation of Ca and its subsequent increase in oxidative stress is proposed to be involved in selective dysfunctionality of dopaminergic neurons, the main cell type affected in Parkinson's disease. To test the in vivo impact of Ca increment in dopaminergic neurons physiology, we downregulated the plasma membrane Ca ATPase (PMCA), a pump that extrudes cytosolic Ca , by expressing PMCA in Drosophila melanogaster dopaminergic neurons. In these animals, we observed major locomotor alterations paralleled to higher cytosolic Ca and increased levels of oxidative stress in mitochondria.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: We compared cardiovascular magnetic resonance segmental native T1 against T2* values for the detection of myocardial iron overload (MIO) in thalassaemia major and we evaluated the clinical correlates of native T1 measurements.
Methods: We considered 146 patients (87 females, 38.7 ± 11.
Transfusion-dependent patients typically develop iron-induced cardiomyopathy, liver disease, and endocrine complications. We aimed to estimate the incidence of endocrine disorders in transfusiondependent thalassemia (TDT) patients during long-term iron-chelation therapy with deferasirox (DFX). We developed a multi-center follow-up study of 426 TDT patients treated with once-daily DFX for a median duration of 8 years, up to 18.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: We systematically explored the link of pancreatic iron with glucose metabolism and with cardiac complications in a cohort of 1,079 patients with thalassemia major (TM) enrolled in the Extension-Myocardial Iron Overload in Thalassemia (E-MIOT) project.
Research Design And Methods: MRI was used to quantify iron overload (T2* technique) and cardiac function (cine images) and to detect macroscopic myocardial fibrosis (late gadolinium enhancement technique). Glucose metabolism was assessed by the oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT).
In mammals, argonaute (AGO) proteins have been characterized for their roles in small RNA-mediated posttranscriptional and also in transcriptional gene silencing. Here, we report a different role for AGO1 in estradiol-triggered transcriptional activation in human cells. We show that in MCF-7 mammary gland cells, AGO1 associates with transcriptional enhancers of estrogen receptor α (ERα) and that this association is up-regulated by treating the cells with estrogen (E2), displaying a positive correlation with the activation of these enhancers.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe longitudinally evaluated the effects of regular blood transfusions (BTs), in the real-life context of the Myocardial Iron Overload in Thalassaemia network, in patients with thalassaemia intermedia (TI). We considered 88 patients with TI (52 females) who started regular BTs after the age of 18 years. Magnetic resonance imaging was used to quantify iron overload and biventricular function.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF