Novel therapeutic approaches for diabetic nephropathy and retinopathy.

Diabetes mellitus is a chronic disease that in the long-term increases the microvascular and macrovascular degenerative complications thus being responsible for a large part of death associated with diabetes. During the years, while preventive care for diabetic patients has improved, the increase in the prevalence of diabetes worldwide is continuous. The detrimental effects of diabetes mellitus result in microvascular diseases, which recognize hyperglycemia as major determinant.

Could JC virus provoke metastasis in colon cancer?

Aim: To evaluate the prevalence of John Cunningham virus (JC virus) in a small cohort of patients with colon cancer and to assess its presence in hepatic metastasis.

Methods: Nineteen consecutive patients with histologically diagnosed colon cancer were included in our study, together with ten subjects affected by histologically and serologically diagnosed hepatitis C virus infection. In the patients included in the colon cancer group, JC virus was searched for in the surgical specimen; in the control group, JC virus was searched for in the hepatic biopsy.

Self-expandable metal stent placement for closure of a leak after total gastrectomy for gastric cancer: report on three cases and review of the literature.

In the setting of the curative oncological surgery, the gastric surgery is exposed to complicated upper gastrointestinal leaks, and consequently the management of this problem has become more critically focused than was previously possible. We report here three cases of placement of a partially silicone-coated SEMS (Evolution Controlled Release Esophageal Stent System, Cook Medical, Winston-Salem, NC, USA) in patients who underwent total gastrectomy with Roux-en-Y end-to-side esophagojejunostomy for a gastric adenocarcinoma. The promising results of our report, despite the small number of patients, suggest that early stenting (through a partially silicone-coated SEMS) is a feasible alternative to surgical treatment in this subset of patients.

Outcome of pregnancy after organ transplantation: a retrospective survey in Italy.

The number of women who decide to have a child after organ transplantation has increased. We determined the outcomes of 67 pregnancies of women who had undergone kidney, liver or heart transplantation. All recipients had been maintained on immunosuppressive therapy before and during pregnancy.

Pregnancy after renal transplantation in Italian patients: focus on fetal outcome.

Background: In the last few years advances in surgical techniques and immunosuppression have improved not only survival, but also quality of life in organ transplanted patients. Hence, the number of women of child-bearing age who decide to have a child--which means resuming a normal life--has increased. This multicenter retrospective study describes pregnancies after kidney transplantation and is the first such survey in Italy.

Advantages and disadvantages of enteric versus bladder diversion in simultaneous kidney-pancreas transplantation.

Simultaneous kidney-pancreas transplantation is universally accepted as being the first-choice treatment for insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus in young patients with end stage renal disease. One hundred and fifty-six simultaneous kidney-pancreas transplantations were evaluated, namely, 33 segmental pancreas transplants with duct occlusion using neoprene (group I), 73 whole pancreas transplants with bladder diversion (group II) and 46 whole pancreas transplants with enteric diversion (group III) (37 with systemic venous drainage and 9 with portal diversion). Patient actuarial survival rates at 1, 5 and 10 years were 85%, 78% and 49%, respectively, in group I and 95%, 78% and 65% in group II.