Publications by authors named "Croce L"

Background: Hypoparathyroidism is a rare endocrine disease characterized by insufficient parathyroid hormone (PTH) secretion by the parathyroid glands, leading to hypocalcemia. In contrast to most hormone deficiencies for which hormone replacement is currently the mainstay of therapy, hypoparathyroidism has conventionally been treated with calcium supplements and active analogs of vitamin D. Although the advent of a replacement therapy with 1-34 and 1-84 PTH represented a major step in the therapeutic history of hypoparathyroidism, several new molecules and different management strategies have recently been developed.

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  • Homosalate is a common UV-B filter in sunscreens that has been found to have estrogenic and anti-androgenic effects in animal models, but its impact on thyroid cells is not well understood.
  • This study tested the effects of Homosalate on two types of thyroid cells (FRTL-5 and NHT) over different concentrations and time periods, finding it significantly reduced cell viability in FRTL-5 at 250μM after 72 hours and in NHT only at the highest concentration (2000μM) after 48-72 hours.
  • The results showed that high concentrations of Homosalate can cause cytotoxicity, exhibit genotoxic effects in rat thyroid cells, and increase the expression of
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  • Fine-needle-aspiration-cytology (FNAC) is a safe and cost-effective method for assessing thyroid nodules, but indeterminate cytology (ITN) sometimes requires further diagnostic surgery.
  • Recent studies from Europe and the U.S. suggest that thyroid cancer (TC) behaves differently based on pre-surgical FNAC results, with ITN cases showing less aggressive characteristics compared to more suspicious diagnoses.
  • A commentary involving thyroid experts highlights the consistent finding that TC with ITN diagnosis has lower rates of complications and mutations, indicating a need to consider less aggressive treatment options for these patients.
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  • Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) is a safe treatment for benign thyroid nodules, but it carries a risk of injury to the recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN), which can affect voice function.
  • The study highlights the use of flexible laryngoscopy (FL) to monitor vocal cord (VC) function during RFA, ensuring safety before treating the second nodule in a patient with hyperthyroidism.
  • The findings suggest that using FL is an effective way to minimize RLN injury risk during both single and bilateral RFA treatments, even when the patient is awake.
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  • Population ageing is on the rise in developed countries, characterized by a decline in the functional capabilities of cells and organs, influenced heavily by inflammatory processes known as "inflamm-ageing."
  • Inflamm-ageing is marked by an increase in pro-inflammatory molecules, leading to a chronic low-grade inflammatory state that can determine the overall health of elderly individuals, affecting whether they experience healthy or unhealthy ageing.
  • Malnutrition is linked to worsened inflammatory responses and is a significant risk factor for sarcopenia (muscle mass loss), which contributes to frailty in the elderly, highlighting the interconnectedness of nutrition, inflammation, and the ageing process.
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Reprogramming somatic cells into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) requires activation of the pluripotency network and resetting of the epigenome by erasing the epigenetic memory of the somatic state. In female mouse cells, a critical epigenetic reprogramming step is the reactivation of the inactive X chromosome. Despite its importance, a systematic understanding of the regulatory networks linking pluripotency and X-reactivation is missing.

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Enterococci commonly cause nosocomial bloodstream infections (BSIs), and the global incidence of vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE) BSIs is rising. This study aimed to assess the risk factors for enterococcal BSIs and 30-day mortality, stratified by species, vancomycin resistance, and treatment appropriateness. We conducted a retrospective cohort study (2014-2021) including all hospitalized adult patients with at least one blood culture positive for or .

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Epigenetic factors are crucial for ensuring proper chromatin dynamics during the initial stages of embryo development. Among these factors, the Polycomb group (PcG) of proteins plays a key role in establishing correct transcriptional programmes during mouse embryogenesis. PcG proteins are classified into two complexes: Polycomb repressive complex 1 (PRC1) and PRC2.

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Objective: Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) is an emerging non-surgical treatment for benign thyroid nodules (BTN). Despite its proven safety profile, data on the learning curve (LC) required to achieve proficiency are still lacking.

Materials And Methods: The first 179 RFA procedures performed by a single operator in patients with non-functioning BTN were retrospectively analyzed.

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Background: Thyroid cancer is the most common endocrine malignancy. Current therapies are successful, however some patients progress to therapeutically refractive disease. The immunotherapeutic potential of the CXCL8-chemokine/CXCR2-chemokine-receptor system is currently being explored in numerous human cancers.

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Introduction: The environmental spread of pollutants has led to a persistent exposure of living beings to multiple chemicals, by now become ubiquitous in the surrounding environment. Environmental exposure to these substances has been reported to cause multi- and/or transgenerational health effects. Per- and Polyfluorinated Substances (PFAS) raise great concern, given their known effects both as endocrine disruptors and potential carcinogens.

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Background: Exposure to environmental pollutants is suspected to be one of the potential causes accounting for the increase in thyroid cancer (TC) incidence worldwide. Among the ubiquitous pollutants, per-polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), were demonstrated to exert thyroid disrupting effects. Perfluoroalkyl carboxylates (PFCAs) represent a subgroup of PFAS and include perfluoro carboxylic acids (PFOA and PFHxA) and perfluoropolyether carboxylic acid (C6O4).

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Introduction: Non-selective beta-blockers (NSBB) are used for primary prophylaxis in patients with liver cirrhosis and high-risk varices (HRVs). Assessing therapeutic response is challenging due to the invasive nature of hepatic venous pressure gradient (HVPG) measurement. This study aims to define a noninvasive machine-learning based approach to determine response to NSBB in patients with liver cirrhosis and HRVs.

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Large language models (LLMs) can potentially transform healthcare, particularly in providing the right information to the right provider at the right time in the hospital workflow. This study investigates the integration of LLMs into healthcare, specifically focusing on improving clinical decision support systems (CDSSs) through accurate interpretation of medical guidelines for chronic Hepatitis C Virus infection management. Utilizing OpenAI's GPT-4 Turbo model, we developed a customized LLM framework that incorporates retrieval augmented generation (RAG) and prompt engineering.

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Background: The relationship between subclinical hypothyroidism (SHYPO) and sleep disturbances is still poorly investigated. This systematic review aims to critically appraise the existing literature to provide more insights in understanding whether SHYPO favors sleep disturbances or it is the sleep disturbance per se that affects the hypothalamus-pituitary-thyroid axis regulation.

Methods: Original studies on sleep quality and duration in patients with SHYPO were searched in the PubMed/MEDLINE, Embase, Web of Science and Scopus databases.

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The Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) mediates epigenetic maintenance of gene silencing in eukaryotes via methylation of histone H3 at lysine 27 (H3K27). Accessory factors define two distinct subtypes, PRC2.1 and PRC2.

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  • The oxidation of histone H3 at lysine 4 (H3K4ox) is catalyzed by LOXL2 and is found in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) cells, where it maintains compacted chromatin.* -
  • LOXL2 interacts with key proteins (RUVBL1, RUVBL2, ACTL6A, DMAP1) that are essential for incorporating the histone variant H2A.Z, which plays a role in chromatin structure.* -
  • Without LOXL2 or RUVBL2, levels of important heterochromatin markers are reduced, impacting the oncogenic features of TNBC cells, suggesting that this molecular interplay is crucial for cancer
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Objective: Obesity is associated with increased thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) in non-pregnant subjects, but this phenomenon has not been fully characterized during pregnancy. Our aim was to evaluate the impact of BMI on first-trimester TSH in a wide cohort of pregnant women with negative anti-thyroperoxidase antibodies (AbTPO) and its implications on uterine artery pulsatility index (UtA-PI), a marker of early placentation.

Methods: The study included 2268 AbTPO-negative pregnant women at their first antenatal visit.

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  • The study compares the risk staging of papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) using American Thyroid Association (ATA) guidelines between patients with indeterminate thyroid nodules (ITNs) and those classified as suspicious for malignancy.
  • It finds that patients with suspicious/malignant nodules (TIR 4/5) show more aggressive cancer characteristics, including higher rates of vascular invasion and lymph node metastasis, compared to those with ITNs.
  • Additionally, the study concludes that TIR 4/5 cytology significantly increases the likelihood of a higher ATA risk classification, indicating that cancers in ITNs tend to be less aggressive.
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Cancer represents the main cause of death worldwide. Thyroid cancer (TC) shows an overall good rate of survival, however there is a percentage of patients that do not respond or are refractory to common therapies. Thus new therapeutics strategies are required.

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Purpose: Canagliflozin exert anti-cancer effects in several types of cancer including thyroid cancer (TC). However, whether it could modulate chemokines secreted in TC microenvironment is still unknown. The aim of the present study is to evaluate whether Canagliflozin could inhibit pro-tumorigenic chemokines CXCL8 and CCL2 and/or the TC cell migration induced by them.

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MAF amplification increases the risk of breast cancer (BCa) metastasis through mechanisms that are still poorly understood yet have important clinical implications. Oestrogen-receptor-positive (ER) BCa requires oestrogen for both growth and metastasis, albeit by ill-known mechanisms. Here we integrate proteomics, transcriptomics, epigenomics, chromatin accessibility and functional assays from human and syngeneic mouse BCa models to show that MAF directly interacts with oestrogen receptor alpha (ERα), thereby promoting a unique chromatin landscape that favours metastatic spread.

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Beekeeping faces several challenges, such as the mite. Few studies have measured the economic performance of farms in relation to the practices used for control. Our study analyzed various biotechniques (total brood removal, TBR; queen caging, QC; royal cell insertion, CI) and other methods (chemical treatments, CT; thymol use, THY) adopted by Italian beekeepers to show whether the adoption of biotechniques leads to farm profitability or a necessary trade-off between sustainability and profitability.

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