Changes in Some Vascular Biomarkers in Patients with Severe COVID-19 with Various Degrees of Pulmonary Hypertension.

The aim of the study was to evaluate the levels of cardiac biomarkers endothelin 1, B-natriuretic peptide (BNP), N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (Nt-proBNP), NO, and NO in patients with COVID-19 pneumonia and various degrees of pulmonary hypertension. Group 1 included patients with pulmonary artery systolic pressure <25 mm Hg, group 2 with 25-40 mm Hg, and group 3 with 40-60 mm Hg. In the group of patients with pulmonary artery systolic pressure <25 mm Hg, the level of NT-proBNP was higher than in the rest two groups by 41.

Trametinib, a novel MEK kinase inhibitor, suppresses lipopolysaccharide-induced tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α production and endotoxin shock.

Lipopolysaccharide (LPS), one of the most prominent pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs), activates macrophages, causing release of toxic cytokines (i.e. tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α) that may provoke inflammation and endotoxin shock.

[Vitamin D hormone in the 21st century clinic: pleiotropic effects and laboratory evaluation (a lecture)].

The lecture gives general information on recent discoveries of the physiology of the vitamin D hormone system, new views of the broadest spectrum of the peripheral effects of active forms of vitamin D, as well as an update on the clinical value of its deficiency in the occurrence of dysfunctions of the majority of vital organs and systems. It discusses the capacities of laboratory evaluation of cholecalciferol provision to diagnose vitamin D deficiency and to monitor it at the stage of pharmacological correction by determining its major transport form (24-hydroxyvitamin D) in serum. Main indications for the investigation of this biomarker and the current recommendations by the leading experts to present a laboratory result and its clinical interpretation are summarized.

[Algorithms of the laboratory diagnosis and monitoring of thyroid diseases in pregnant women: clinical laboratory aspects (a lecture)].

By taking account the recommendations of the International consensus built up by the Committee of the US Endocrinology Association (2007), the 2006 normative documents by the Ministry of Health and Social Development of the Russian Federation and on the basis of the their many years' clinical and pedagogical experience, the authors have prepared a lecture for laboratory study specialists, obstetricians, endocrinologists, and other physicians who are responsible for the management of pregnant women. Concise data on the physiology of the thyroid in healthy pregnant women and in those who reside in the iodine-deficiency areas are given. The updated data on the clinical types of gestational thyroid pathology, the effects of thyroid hormone deficiency and excess on a future mother, the placenta, and fetal growth and development are summarized.