A necrotising fasciitis: case report.

Necrotizing fasciitis is one of the most common soft tissue infections, with a high risk of major amputation and a mortality ranging from 6 to 33% which has not changed in the past 20 years. Early surgical resection of necrotic tissue plays a key role in determining the prognosis. Nawijn et al.

Validation and Reliability of a Novel Vagus Nerve Neurodynamic Test and Its Effects on Heart Rate in Healthy Subjects: Little Differences Between Sexes.

Background: The vagus nerve (VN), also called the pneumogastric nerve, connects the brainstem to organs contained in the chest and abdomen. Physiologically, VN stimulation can rapidly affect cardiac activity and heart rate (HR). VN neuropathy can increase the risk of arrhythmias and sudden death.

Not only FAST The MUSEC® experience in training surgeons.

For a long time surgeons have been discussing the need to improve their skills in the use of ultrasound (US). However in the recent years it has become evident the importancxe for general aklnd trauma surgeons treating critically-ill patients to learn basic and advanced US. The two last editions (9th and 10th) of the ATLS manual have officially included FAST and e-FAST in the primary assessment of trauma patients, making this tool an essential skill for surgeons.

Correction to: Surgeon-performed point-of-care ultrasound for acute cholecystitis: indications and limitations: a European Society for Trauma and Emergency Surgery (ESTES) consensus statement.

Unfortunately, the author Luca Ponchietti was omitted in the original publication. Please find the correct author list here.

Surgeon-performed point-of-care ultrasound for acute cholecystitis: indications and limitations: a European Society for Trauma and Emergency Surgery (ESTES) consensus statement.

Background: Acute cholecystitis (AC), frequently responsible for presentation to the emergency department, requires expedient diagnosis and definitive treatment by a general surgeon. Ultrasonography, usually performed by radiology technicians and reported by radiologists, is the first-line imaging study for the assessment of AC. Targeted point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS), particularly in the hands of the treating surgeon, may represent an evolution in surgical decision-making and may expedite care, reducing morbidity and cost.

Educational impact of hand motion analysis in the evaluation of FAST examination skills.

Purpose: Increasing pressure pushes towards the objective competence assessment of clinical operators. Hand motion analysis (HMA) was introduced to measure surgical and clinical procedures; its recent application to FAST examinations leaves unsolved issues. This study aimed at determining optimal HMA parameters to discriminate between operators' skill levels, and which FAST tasks are experience-dependent.

Assessment of Nutritional and Inflammatory Status to Determine the Prevalence of Malnutrition in Patients Undergoing Surgery for Colorectal Carcinoma.

Background/aim: Colorectal Cancer is the fourth most frequent cause of cancer death worldwide and its incidence increases from 50 years of age. It is often associated with protein-caloric malnutrition and 20% of cancer deaths occur due to this event. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of malnutrition and inflammatory status in 78 patients undergoing surgery for colorectal carcinoma.

Clinical and prognostic role of matrix metalloproteinase-2, -9 and their inhibitors in breast cancer and liver diseases: A review.

Matrix metalloproteinases are a family of zinc endopeptidases with proteolytic activity against the extracellular matrix components. In particular, two members of this family named Gelatinase A and B, as amply documented in the literature, play a key role in the process of tumor growth/metastasis in breast and hepatocellular carcinoma. Their activity is regulated by Tissue Inhibitor of metalloproteinases-1 and -2, which are the physiological inhibitor of Gelatinases A and B respectively.

Tailored ultrasound learning for acute care surgeons: a review of the MUSEC (Modular UltraSound ESTES Course) project.

Purpose: The European Society for Trauma and Emergency Surgery (ESTES) identified the need for general and trauma surgeons involved in the management of critically ill surgical patients to embrace and learn both basic and advanced US skills. A steering group was created to address this deficit.

Methods: Modular UltraSound ESTES Course (MUSEC) is a modular blended-learning course.

ESTES guidelines: acute mesenteric ischaemia.

Purpose: Acute mesenteric ischaemia (AMI) accounts for about 1:1000 acute hospital admissions. Untreated, AMI will cause mesenteric infarction, intestinal necrosis, an overwhelming inflammatory response and death. Early intervention can halt and reverse this process leading to a full recovery, but the diagnosis of AMI is difficult and failure to recognize AMI before intestinal necrosis has developed is responsible for the high mortality of the disease.

Knockout of the PKN Family of Rho Effector Kinases Reveals a Non-redundant Role for PKN2 in Developmental Mesoderm Expansion.

In animals, the protein kinase C (PKC) family has expanded into diversely regulated subgroups, including the Rho family-responsive PKN kinases. Here, we describe knockouts of all three mouse PKN isoforms and reveal that PKN2 loss results in lethality at embryonic day 10 (E10), with associated cardiovascular and morphogenetic defects. The cardiovascular phenotype was not recapitulated by conditional deletion of PKN2 in endothelial cells or the developing heart.

Regulatory domain selectivity in the cell-type specific PKN-dependence of cell migration.

The mammalian protein kinase N (PKN) family of Serine/Threonine kinases comprises three isoforms, which are targets for Rho family GTPases. Small GTPases are major regulators of the cellular cytoskeleton, generating interest in the role(s) of specific PKN isoforms in processes such as cell migration and invasion. It has been reported that PKN3 is required for prostate tumour cell invasion but not PKN1 or 2.

Basal cytokines profile in metastatic renal cell carcinoma patients treated with subcutaneous IL-2-based therapy compared with that of healthy donors.

Background And Purpose: Metastatic renal cell carcinoma (MRCC) has a poor prognosis with a median overall survival of about one year. Since only a minority of patients experienced therapeutic benefit to current treatments, several studies have attempted to identify factors that may have an impact on response and survival. Cytokines play a crucial role in the host's immune response by regulating the development and function of a lot of biological compartments.

Basal level and behaviour of cytokines in a randomized outpatient trial comparing chemotherapy and biochemotherapy in metastatic melanoma.

Cytokines play a crucial role in the host's immune response. In melanoma patients, cytokine profiles seems to be related to the clinical course and their imbalance could be associated to tumour progression. Thus, we studied a panel of baseline cytokines and their behaviour during treatment in order to verify their correlation with clinical outcomes.

C-reactive protein: a biomarker of survival in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma treated with subcutaneous interleukin-2 based immunotherapy.

Purpose: In patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma treated with low dose subcutaneous interleukin-2 based immunotherapy we evaluated a panel of biohumoral and clinical parameters before treatment to verify their correlation with clinical outcome.

Materials And Methods: We analyzed the records of 110 patients treated at our institution. Before treatment total lymphocytes, lactate dehydrogenase, the erythrocyte sedimentation rate, albumin, C-reactive protein (CRP) and fibrinogen were analyzed and correlated with clinical parameters, namely performance status, patient age, sex, prior nephrectomy, number and sites of disease, and disease-free interval (DFI) from nephrectomy to metastatic disease.

Fibrinogen: a novel predictor of responsiveness in metastatic melanoma patients treated with bio-chemotherapy: IMI (italian melanoma inter-group) trial.

PURPOSE: To evaluate a panel of pretreatment clinical and laboratory parameters in metastatic melanoma (MM) in order to verify their impact on response and survival in a single prospective multi-institutional phase III study comparing out-patient chemotherapy (CT) vs bioCT. METHODS: A total of 176 patients were randomised to receive CT (cisplatin, dacarbazine, optional carmustine) or bioCT (the same CT followed by subcutaneous IL-2 plus intramuscular alpha-IFN-2b). Pretreatment total leucocytes, lymphocytes, eosinophyls, C-reactive protein (CRP), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), erytrosedimentation rate (ESR), and fibrinogen were analyzed.

Hyperosmotic-induced protein kinase N 1 activation in a vesicular compartment is dependent upon Rac1 and 3-phosphoinositide-dependent kinase 1.

Protein kinase N 1 (PKN1), which in part resembles yeast protein kinase C, has been shown to be under the control of Rho GTPases and 3-phosphoinositide-dependent kinase 1 (PDK1). We show here that green fluorescent protein-tagged PKN1 has the ability to translocate in a reversible manner to a vesicular compartment following hyperosmotic stress. PKN1 kinase activity is not necessary for this translocation, and in fact the PKN inhibitor HA1077 is also shown to induce PKN1 vesicle accumulation.

Interleukin-2, interferon-alpha and medroxyprogesterone acetate in metastatic renal cell carcinoma.

Background: Interleukin-2 (IL-2) and interferon-alpha (IFN-alpha) are the main immuno-biological agents used in the therapy of metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Unfortunately the promising results obtained in biological studies have not yet been confirmed in clinical studies. One reason is linked to the immunosuppression of metastatic patients which is caused by macrophage products.

Integrin-dependent cell growth and survival are mediated by different signals in thyroid cells.

Cell adhesion to extracellular matrix regulates proliferation and survival of several cell types including epithelial thyroid cells. Activation of integrin receptors by binding to extracellular matrix generates a complex cell type-dependent signaling. Adhesion to extracellular matrix induces proliferation and survival in primary cultures of thyroid cells and induces survival in immortalized human thyrocytes.

Rho GTPase control of protein kinase C-related protein kinase activation by 3-phosphoinositide-dependent protein kinase.

The protein kinase C-related protein kinases (PRKs) have been shown to be under the control of the Rho GTPases and influenced by autophosphorylation. In analyzing the relationship between these inputs, it is shown that activation in vitro and in vivo involves the activation loop phosphorylation of PRK1/2 by 3-phosphoinositide-dependent protein kinase-1 (PDK1). Rho overexpression in cultured cells is shown to increase the activation loop phosphorylation of endogenous PRKs and is demonstrated to influence this process by controlling the ability of PRKs to bind to PDK1.

Apoptosis induced by denied adhesion to extracellular matrix (anoikis) in thyroid epithelial cells is p53 dependent but fails to correlate with modulation of p53 expression.

In normal epithelial cells, impaired cell-matrix contact leads to induction of programmed cell death, a process that has been termed 'anoikis'. We investigated the role of p53 and other apoptotic proteins in anoikis in thyroid epithelial cells. Western blot analysis demonstrated that neither p53 nor Bcl-2, Bcl-XL and Bax protein expression changed during anoikis.

Expression of integrins of the beta1 family in thyroid cells from patients with Graves' disease in vivo and in vitro.

The expression of the beta1 family of integrins was determined in thyroid follicular cells from patients with Graves' disease (GD). Integrin expression was quantitated by flow fluorocytometry of single cell suspensions with antibodies against the common beta1 chain and the alpha1-alpha6 subunits. Results indicated that also in thyroid glands of GD, as previously observed in nodular goiters, two follicular cell populations with different patterns of beta1 integrin expression coexist (VLAalpha3beta1 and VLAalpha1,3,5,6beta1).

Insulin-like growth factor I stimulates tyrosine phosphorylation of p130(Cas), focal adhesion kinase, and paxillin. Role of phosphatidylinositol 3'-kinase and formation of a p130(Cas).Crk complex.

Addition of insulin growth factor-I (IGF-I) to quiescent Swiss 3T3 cells rapidly induced tyrosine phosphorylation of the p130Crk-associated substrate (p130(Cas)), a novel adaptor protein localized at focal adhesions. Half-maximal effect was obtained at 0. 6 nM.

Tyrosine phosphorylation of p130(cas) by bombesin, lysophosphatidic acid, phorbol esters, and platelet-derived growth factor. Signaling pathways and formation of a p130(cas)-Crk complex.

Treatment of Swiss 3T3 cells with bombesin rapidly induced tyrosine phosphorylation of the p130 Crk-associated substrate (p130(cas)). Vasopressin, endothelin, bradykinin, lysophosphatidic acid, sphingosylphosphorylcholine, and phorbol 12,13-dibutyrate also stimulated p130(cas) tyrosine phosphorylation. Bombesin-induced p130(cas) tyrosine phosphorylation could be dissociated from both protein kinase C activation and Ca2+ mobilization from intracellular stores.