Influenza A/H1N1 MF59-adjuvanted vaccine in preterm and term children aged 6 to 23 months.

Objective: This study was designed to evaluate the immunogenicity, safety, and tolerability of a monovalent 2009 pandemic influenza A/H1N1 MF59-adjuvanted vaccine in children aged 6 to 23 months who had different gestational ages (GAs) at birth.

Methods: The study involved 105 children: 35 preterm subjects with a GA of <32 weeks; 35 preterm subjects with a GA of 32 to 36 weeks; and 35 term subjects with a GA of 37 to 42 weeks. Each child received 2 intramuscular vaccine doses (Focetria [Novartis, Siena, Italy]): dose 1 at enrollment and dose 2 after 4 weeks (28 ± 2 days).

Knowledge of oxygen administration, aerosol medicine, and chest physiotherapy among pediatric healthcare workers in Italy.

Background: Oxygen administration, aerosol devices and drugs, or the use of chest physiotherapy are common practices in pediatrics; however, little is known about the knowledge of pediatric healthcare workers concerning the right utilization of these tools. The aim of this study was to fill this gap as a preliminary step in the implementation of appropriate educational programs.

Methods: This cross-sectional survey of a nationally representative sample of Italian pediatricians and nurses was carried out between September 1 and October 8, 2008.

Effects of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids on malignant ventricular arrhythmias in patients with chronic heart failure and implantable cardioverter-defibrillators: A substudy of the Gruppo Italiano per lo Studio della Sopravvivenza nell'Insufficienza Cardiaca (GISSI-HF) trial.

Background: The antiarrhythmic effects of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3PUFA) in ischemic heart disease have been demonstrated; however, studies in patients surviving malignant ventricular arrhythmias of different etiologies treated with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) have given conflicting results. The purpose of this study was to assess the antiarrhythmic effect of n-3PUFA versus placebo in 566 patients with heart failure enrolled in the GISSI-HF trial who received an ICD for secondary or primary prevention of ventricular fibrillation (VF) or tachycardia (VT).

Methods: Clinical data and arrhythmic event recordings extracted from the device memory were obtained.

Pandemic influenza A/H1N1 vaccine administered sequentially or simultaneously with seasonal influenza vaccine to HIV-infected children and adolescents.

In order to evaluate the immunogenicity, safety and tolerability of the 2009 A/H1N1 MF59-adjuvanted influenza vaccine administered sequentially or simultaneously with seasonal virosomal-adjuvanted influenza vaccine to HIV-infected children and adolescents, 36 HIV-infected children and adolescents, and 36 age- and gender-matched healthy controls were randomised 1:1 to receive the pandemic vaccine upon enrollment and the seasonal vaccine one month later, or to receive the pandemic and seasonal vaccines simultaneously upon enrollment. Seroconversion and seroprotection rates against the pandemic influenza A/H1N1 virus were 100% two months after vaccine administration in both groups, regardless of the sequence of administration. Geometric mean titres against pandemic and seasonal antigens were significantly higher when the seasonal and pandemic vaccines were administered simultaneously than when the seasonal vaccine was administered alone.

An open-label, randomized clinical trial assessing immunogenicity, safety and tolerability of pandemic influenza A/H1N1 MF59-adjuvanted vaccine administered sequentially or simultaneously with seasonal virosomal-adjuvanted influenza vaccine to paediatric kidney transplant recipients.

Background: The aim of this study was to investigate the immunogenicity, safety and tolerability of the 2009 A/H1N1 MF59-adjuvanted influenza vaccine, administered sequentially or simultaneously with the seasonal 2009-10 virosomal-adjuvanted influenza vaccine, to paediatric kidney transplant recipients.

Methods: Thirty-two children and adolescents with transplanted kidneys and 32 age- and gender-matched healthy controls were randomized 1:1 to receive the pandemic vaccine upon enrolment and the seasonal vaccine 1 month later (16 transplant recipients and 16 healthy controls), or to receive the two vaccines simultaneously upon enrolment (16 transplant recipients and 16 healthy controls).

Results: When the pandemic vaccine was administered sequentially to the seasonal vaccine, it was significantly less immunogenic in the patients than in the controls (P < 0.

Immunogenicity, safety and tolerability of monovalent 2009 pandemic influenza A/H1N1 MF59-adjuvanted vaccine in patients with β-thalassemia major.

In order to evaluate the immunogenicity, safety, and tolerability of monovalent 2009 pandemic influenza A/H1N1 MF59-adjuvanted vaccine in patients with β-thalassemia major, 31 subjects (19 males; mean age 17.8±8.7 years) with β-thalassemia major and 28 age- and gender-matched healthy controls were enrolled.

Vaccines and preterm neonates: why, when, and with what.

This review analyses what is known concerning the immune response of preterm (PTIs) and low birth weight infants (LBWIs) to widely used vaccines, the protection they receive from routine immunisation, and the safety and tolerability of the vaccines themselves. It shows why PTIs and LBWIs should be vaccinated using the same schedules as those usually recommended for full-term infants (FTIs), except in the case of hepatitis B vaccine, whose schedule should be repeated in infants who received the first dose during the first days of life when they weighed less than 2000 g because of their reduced immune response. Vaccines are immunogenic, safe and well tolerated in PTIs and LBWIs, in whom early active immunisation is particularly important because they are among the most vulnerable subjects for pediatric infectious diseases.

Effect of beta-adrenergic and renin-angiotensin system blockade on myocyte apoptosis and oxidative stress in diabetic hypertensive rats.

Diabetes aggravates the clinical severity and represents an additional independent risk factor of hypertension. Since both diseases separately concur to cardiomyocyte apoptosis, a mechanism at least partly involving unbalanced oxidative stress, we investigated whether the combination of diabetes and hypertension potentiated cardiac cell death in experimental models, compared to either disease alone. We also evaluated the short-term effects of different drugs in these models.

HPLC-DAD determination of mepivacaine in cerebrospinal fluid from a fatal case.

A fatal case involving mepivacaine-induced epidural anesthesia is described. The pathological findings were typical of cardiac shock from ischemic origin. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) was obtained several hours after death and mepivacaine was identified by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS).

Detection of transcripts of the aflatoxin genes aflD, aflO, and aflP by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction allows differentiation of aflatoxin-producing and non-producing isolates of Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus.

The aim of this study was to test the suitability of the RT-PCR (reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction) technique to differentiate aflatoxin-producing from aflatoxin-non-producing strains of Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus. Total RNAs of 13 strains grown under inducing yeast extract-sucrose (YES) and non-inducing yeast extract-peptone (YEP) media, respectively, were analyzed by using specific primers based on the conserved regions of nine structural genes (aflD, aflG, aflH, aflI, aflK, aflM, aflO, aflP, and aflQ) and two regulatory genes aflS and aflR of the aflatoxin B1 biosynthetic pathway. Transcription was confirmed by the expression of the beta-tubulin gene.