Asthma, allergy and the Olympics: a 12-year survey in elite athletes.

Objective: There are no comprehensive surveys relating the reported high prevalence of asthma and allergic diseases in athletes to comorbidities and immune changes associated with intense chronic exercise. This 12-year survey aims to evaluate several clinical, functional and immunological parameters in order to assess features, trend and burden of asthma, allergy, infections and autoimmune diseases, in a large homogeneous population of Olympic athletes.

Methods: Six hundred and fifty-nine Italian Olympic athletes were studied through four cross-sectional surveys performed between 2000 and 2012 before the Summer and Winter Olympics.

Cigarette smoke and increased COX-2 and survivin levels in exhaled breath condensate of lung cancer patients: how hot is the link?

Unlabelled: One of the most current intriguing hypotheses on lung cancerogenesis envisages a role for inflammation as a possible trigger of both epithelial-mesenchymal transition and cancer development. Cigarette smoke has been suggested to be the main factor underlying the inflammation of the airways described in lung cancer patients. Cycloxygenase and survivin, a COX-2 dependent factor of apoptosis resistance, seem to play a key role in this regard.

AQUA: Allergy Questionnaire for Athletes. Development and validation.

Purpose: Despite the high and increasing prevalence of allergic diseases in athletes, allergy diagnostics is not part of the routine medical examination in sports medicine. This study reports the development and validation of an easy and reliable questionnaire for screening allergy in athletes.

Methods: AQUA was derived from the European Community Respiratory Health Survey Questionnaire.

[New biomolecular methodologies in diagnosis of lung cancer].

Lung cancer remains the most frequent tumour and cause of cancer death in worldwide. Unfortunately most of patients still discover their tumour in advanced stage. Lung cancer results from the occurrence of a number of genetic alterations in oncogenes and tumour suppressor genes that are potential markers either for screening procedures or for earlier detection in patients with non small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Practical approach to diagnosis and treatment of ocular allergy: a 1-year systematic review.

Purpose Of Review: A 1-year systematic review in the field of ocular allergy was carried out to select new information which may be useful for a practical approach to allergic conjunctivitis.

Recent Findings: Out of the 56 articles listed by PubMed, 27 papers were included in the review following a consensus achieved among the authors who had independently reviewed all abstracts. Selected articles were classified according to their main focus: antihistamines, omalizumab, new treatments for vernal keratoconjunctivitis and inflammatory ocular disorders, and sublingual immunotherapy.

Development and testing of the quality of life in children with vernal keratoconjunctivitis questionnaire.

Purpose: To develop and validate a questionnaire that measures health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in children with vernal keratoconjunctivitis (VKC).

Design: Prospective, observational case series.

Methods: An initial list of 42 items was developed and administered to 30 children with active VKC (six girls and 24 boys; mean age, nine +/- two years).

Immunodysregulation of HIV disease at bone marrow level.

Hematological abnormalities frequently occur in patients infected with HIV-1. Increasing evidence indicates that bone marrow (BM) suppression results from viral infection of accessory cells, with impaired stromal function and alteration of hematopoietic growth factor network. We investigated the effects of antiretroviral therapy on cytokine and chemokine production by BM cells and stromal cells, in a group of HIV-1-infected subjects before and during treatment.

Idiopathic CD4+ lymphocytopenia may be due to decreased bone marrow clonogenic capability.

Background: Idiopathic CD4+ lymphocytopenia is defined by a stable decrease of CD4+ T cells in the absence of any known cause of immune deficiency. The mechanisms responsible for the immunological impairment are still unknown, but a regenerative failure of hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells has been hypothesized.

Methods: We evaluated in the bone marrow (BM) of 5 patients with idiopathic CD4+ lymphocytopenia the phenotype of BM progenitor cells, their differentiation capacity with colony-forming cells and long-term culture-initiating cell assays, in parallel with the spontaneous IL-7 production in the patient sera.