Publications by authors named "F Francomano"

Cancer represents one of the major causes of mortality worldwide; indeed, 19.3 million new cases and almost 10.0 million deaths were estimated last year.

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Molecular recognition is a useful property shared by various molecules, such as antibodies, aptamers and molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs). It allows these molecules to be potentially involved in many applications including biological and pharmaceutical research, diagnostics, theranostics, therapy and drug delivery. Antibodies, naturally produced by plasma cells, have been exploited for this purpose, but they present noticeable drawbacks, above all production cost and time.

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Endometriosis is an uncommon disease in postmenopausal women (PMW), ranging from 2% to 5% of cases, and it is very important to exclude neoplastic transformation of the endometrium. The authors would like to introduce the case of a 63-year-old overweight patient with abdominal pain associated to pain and swelling of the left inferior limb occurring for approximately six weeks. The CT X-ray of the abdomen revealed the presence of a retroperitoneal mass causing deep vein thrombosis because of extrinsic compression of the left iliac vein.

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Aim: The finding of a neck nodular lesion provides strong suspicion of primary thyroid malignancy. Direct extension into the thyroid parenchyma of carcinomas arising from pharynx, larynx, trachea or esophagus, nervous structures has been also observed in the minority of cases. The intent of our study is to present and discuss rare conditions presenting asymptomatic neck masses, with particular emphasis on pre-operative characteristics and diagnostic criteria.

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The role of EGF and TGF-β1 in thyroid cancer is still not clearly defined. TGF-β1 inhibited the cellular growth and migration of follicular (FTC-133) and papillary (B-CPAP) thyroid carcinoma cell lines. Co-treatments of TGF-β1 and EGF inhibited proliferation in both cell lines, but displayed opposite effect on their migratory capability, leading to inhibition in B-CPAP and promotion in FTC-133 cells, by a MAPK-dependent mechanism.

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