The Prevention of Maternal Phenylketonuria (PKU) Syndrome: The Development and Evaluation of a Specific Training Program.

Background: Maternal phenylketonuria (PKU) syndrome, leading to severe psychomotor retardation, microcephaly, cardiac defects and undergrowth, affects the unborn children of mothers with PKU with insufficient metabolic control during pregnancy. To improve long-term outcomes, a specific prevention program was developed.

Methods: We designed a group training program for young women with PKU (>14 years) and their partners.

Clinical phenotyping uncovers heterogeneous associations between corticosteroid treatment and survival in critically ill COVID-19 patients.

Purpose: Disease heterogeneity in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) may render the current one-size-fits-all treatment approach suboptimal. We aimed to identify and immunologically characterize clinical phenotypes among critically ill COVID-19 patients, and to assess heterogeneity of corticosteroid treatment effect.

Methods: We applied consensus k-means clustering on 21 clinical parameters obtained within 24 h after admission to the intensive care unit (ICU) from 13,279 COVID-19 patients admitted to 82 Dutch ICUs from February 2020 to February 2022.

Preclinical and first-in-human safety studies on a novel magnetism-based haemofiltration method.

Extracorporeal haemofiltration devices that selectively remove cytokines could represent an adjunctive treatment in inflammatory diseases. One such device is the "IL-6-Sieve", wherein magnetic Anti-IL-6 Beads are introduced into an extracorporeal circuit via a Bead Adapter and then removed along with any surface-bound interleukin (IL)-6 by a Filter deployed in a Magnet, before the blood is returned to the patient. We report here on a series of animal studies, and a first-in-human study, on the safety of the IL-6-Sieve.

Impaired angiotensin II signaling in septic shock.

Recent years have seen a resurgence of interest for the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system in critically ill patients. Emerging data suggest that this vital homeostatic system, which plays a crucial role in maintaining systemic and renal hemodynamics during stressful conditions, is altered in septic shock, ultimately leading to impaired angiotensin II-angiotensin II type 1 receptor signaling. Indeed, available evidence from both experimental models and human studies indicates that alterations in the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system during septic shock can occur at three distinct levels: 1.