Design and Proof of Concept of a Web-Based Questionnaire to Identify Patients at Risk for HIV and HCV Infection.

Despite remarkable improvement in the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) care continuum, the rate of late diagnosis of HIV and HCV in high-income countries remains unacceptably high. Testing relies mainly on primary care physicians' identification of risk factors. We aimed to adapt an analogic to an online questionnaire to help HIV and HCV screening and perform a pilot study to assess its accuracy and acceptability.

Rituximab is a safe and effective alternative treatment for patients with autoimmune hepatitis: Results from the ColHai registry.

Background And Aims: Small series suggest that rituximab could be effective as treatment for autoimmune hepatitis (AIH), although data are scarce. We aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of rituximab in different cohorts of patients with AIH.

Methods: Multicentre retrospective analysis of the 35 patients with AIH and its variant forms treated with rituximab and included in the ColHai registry between 2015 and 2023.

Real-life effectiveness of sofosbuvir/velpatasvir/voxilaprevir in hepatitis C patients previously treated with sofosbuvir/velpatasvir or glecaprevir/pibrentasvir.

Background: Sofosbuvir, velpatasvir and voxilaprevir (SOF/VEL/VOX) is the recommended rescue therapy for patients with chronic hepatitis C infection who fail direct-acting antivirals (DAAs). Data are limited on the effectiveness of this treatment after the current first-line therapies. Our aim was to analyse the effectiveness and safety of SOF/VEL/VOX among patients failing sofosbuvir/velpatasvir (SOF/VEL) or glecaprevir/pibrentasvir (GLE/PIB).

Post-treatment LSM rather than change during treatment predicts decompensation in patients with cACLD after HCV cure.

Background & Aims: Baveno VII has defined a clinically significant (i.e., prognostically meaningful) decrease in liver stiffness measurement (LSM) in cACLD as a decrease of ≥20% associated with a final LSM <20 kPa or any decrease to <10 kPa.

Outcomes and factors associated with relapse of vaccine-induced liver injury after SARS CoV-2 immunization: A nationwide study.

Introduction And Objectives: Different patterns of liver injury have been reported in association with the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines. The aim of this study was to describe a nationwide cohort of patients with SARS CoV-2 vaccine-induced liver injury, focusing on treatment and the evolution after further booster administration.

Patients And Methods: multicentre, retrospective-prospective study, including subjects who developed abnormal liver tests within 90 days after administration of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination.

Budesonide as first-line treatment in patients with autoimmune hepatitis seems inferior to standard predniso(lo)ne administration.

Background And Aims: In patients with non-severe acute or chronic autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) without cirrhosis, clinical practice guidelines recommend indistinct use of prednisone or budesonide. However, budesonide is infrequently used in clinical practice. We aimed to describe its use and compare its efficacy and safety with prednisone as first-line options.

Detailed stratified GWAS analysis for severe COVID-19 in four European populations.

Given the highly variable clinical phenotype of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a deeper analysis of the host genetic contribution to severe COVID-19 is important to improve our understanding of underlying disease mechanisms. Here, we describe an extended genome-wide association meta-analysis of a well-characterized cohort of 3255 COVID-19 patients with respiratory failure and 12 488 population controls from Italy, Spain, Norway and Germany/Austria, including stratified analyses based on age, sex and disease severity, as well as targeted analyses of chromosome Y haplotypes, the human leukocyte antigen region and the SARS-CoV-2 peptidome. By inversion imputation, we traced a reported association at 17q21.

Oxidative Stress in the Pathogenesis of Crohn's Disease and the Interconnection with Immunological Response, Microbiota, External Environmental Factors, and Epigenetics.

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a complex multifactorial disorder in which external and environmental factors have a large influence on its onset and development, especially in genetically susceptible individuals. Crohn's disease (CD), one of the two types of IBD, is characterized by transmural inflammation, which is most frequently located in the region of the terminal ileum. Oxidative stress, caused by an overabundance of reactive oxygen species, is present locally and systemically in patients with CD and appears to be associated with the well-described imbalanced immune response and dysbiosis in the disease.

Performance comparison of two next-generation sequencing panels to detect actionable mutations in cell-free DNA in cancer patients.

Background Genomic alterations studies in cell-free DNA (cfDNA) have increasing clinical use in oncology. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology provides the most complete mutational analysis, but nowadays limited data are available related to the comparison of results reported by different platforms. Here we compare two NGS panels for cfDNA: Oncomine™ Pan-Cancer Cell-Free Assay (Thermo Fisher Scientific), suitable for clinical laboratories, and Guardant360® (GuardantHealth), with more genes targeted but only available in an outsourcing laboratory.

Genomewide Association Study of Severe Covid-19 with Respiratory Failure.

Background: There is considerable variation in disease behavior among patients infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19). Genomewide association analysis may allow for the identification of potential genetic factors involved in the development of Covid-19.

Methods: We conducted a genomewide association study involving 1980 patients with Covid-19 and severe disease (defined as respiratory failure) at seven hospitals in the Italian and Spanish epicenters of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in Europe.

Plasma Oncostatin M, TNF-α, IL-7, and IL-13 Network Predicts Crohn's Disease Response to Infliximab, as Assessed by Calprotectin Log Drop.

Background: Cytokines emerge as possible biomarkers of response in Crohn's disease (CD). We aimed to determine the plasmatic cytokine profiles of active CD patients who started infliximab (IFX) treatment and their capacity to predict the response to IFX.

Methods: A total of 30 active CD patients receiving an induction therapy of IFX were enrolled in the study.

Bases for the Adequate Development of Nutritional Recommendations for Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic and relapsing inflammatory condition of the gastrointestinal tract; it is a heterogeneous and multifactorial disorder resulting from a complex interplay between genetic variation, intestinal microbiota, the host immune system and environmental factors such as diet, drugs, breastfeeding and smoking. The interactions between dietary nutrients and intestinal immunity are complex. There is a compelling argument for environmental factors such as diet playing a role in the cause and course of IBD, given that three important factors in the pathogenesis of IBD can be modulated and controlled by diet: intestinal microbiota, the immune system and epithelial barrier function.

Comparison of six commercial serum exosome isolation methods suitable for clinical laboratories. Effect in cytokine analysis.

Background Exosomes are nanovesicles released by cells that can be detected in blood. Exosomes contain several molecules, such as cytokines that have potential utility as disease biomarkers. The aim of the present work is to compare six different commercial kits suitable for the clinical laboratory in relation to the efficiency and purity of exosome isolation, and their effect in subsequent cytokines analysis.

The Dynamic Use of Mutation Analysis in Cell-Free DNA as a Follow-Up Biomarker during Different Treatment Lines in Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer Patients.

Epidermal growth factor receptor () mutational testing in advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is usually performed in tumor tissue, although cfDNA (cell-free DNA) could be an alternative. We evaluated mutations in cfDNA as a complementary tool in patients, who had already known mutations in tumor tissue and were treated with either EGFR-tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) or chemotherapy. We obtained plasma samples from 21 advanced NSCLC patients with known tumor mutations, before and during therapy with EGFR-TKIs and/or chemotherapy.

Group-Level Progressive Alterations in Brain Connectivity Patterns Revealed by Diffusion-Tensor Brain Networks across Severity Stages in Alzheimer's Disease.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a chronically progressive neurodegenerative disease highly correlated to aging. Whether AD originates by targeting a localized brain area and propagates to the rest of the brain across disease-severity progression is a question with an unknown answer. Here, we aim to provide an answer to this question at the group-level by looking at differences in diffusion-tensor brain networks.

Lagged and instantaneous dynamical influences related to brain structural connectivity.

Contemporary neuroimaging methods can shed light on the basis of human neural and cognitive specializations, with important implications for neuroscience and medicine. Indeed, different MRI acquisitions provide different brain networks at the macroscale; whilst diffusion-weighted MRI (dMRI) provides a structural connectivity (SC) coincident with the bundles of parallel fibers between brain areas, functional MRI (fMRI) accounts for the variations in the blood-oxygenation-level-dependent T2(*) signal, providing functional connectivity (FC). Understanding the precise relation between FC and SC, that is, between brain dynamics and structure, is still a challenge for neuroscience.

Information Flow Between Resting-State Networks.

Unlabelled: The resting brain dynamics self-organize into a finite number of correlated patterns known as resting-state networks (RSNs). It is well known that techniques such as independent component analysis can separate the brain activity at rest to provide such RSNs, but the specific pattern of interaction between RSNs is not yet fully understood. To this aim, we propose here a novel method to compute the information flow (IF) between different RSNs from resting-state magnetic resonance imaging.

A novel brain partition highlights the modular skeleton shared by structure and function.

Elucidating the intricate relationship between brain structure and function, both in healthy and pathological conditions, is a key challenge for modern neuroscience. Recent progress in neuroimaging has helped advance our understanding of this important issue, with diffusion images providing information about structural connectivity (SC) and functional magnetic resonance imaging shedding light on resting state functional connectivity (rsFC). Here, we adopt a systems approach, relying on modular hierarchical clustering, to study together SC and rsFC datasets gathered independently from healthy human subjects.

Maternal deprivation induces a rapid decline in circulating leptin levels and sexually dimorphic modifications in hypothalamic trophic factors and cell turnover.

Pathological outcomes, including metabolic and endocrine disturbances, of maternal deprivation (MD) in Wistar rats depend on gender and the timing of deprivation during development. We analyzed the effect of MD between postnatal days 9 and 10, a critical period in hypothalamic development, on circulating hormones and local production of trophic factors involved in this process, as well as on markers of cell turnover and maturation. Males and females were studied 12 and 24 h after MD and 12 h (MD36) after returning the dam to her pups.

Early maternal deprivation induces gender-dependent changes on the expression of hippocampal CB(1) and CB(2) cannabinoid receptors of neonatal rats.

Early maternal deprivation (MD) in rats (24 h, postnatal day 9-10) is a model for neurodevelopmental stress. There are some data proving that MD affects the endocannabinoid system (ECS) in a gender-dependent manner, and that these changes may account for the proposed schizophrenia-like phenotype of MD rats. The impact of MD on cannabinoid receptor distribution in the hippocampus is unknown.