CTCF deletion alters the pluripotency and DNA methylation profile of human iPSCs.

Pluripotent stem cells are characterized by their differentiation potential toward endoderm, mesoderm, and ectoderm. However, it is still largely unclear how these cell-fate decisions are mediated by epigenetic mechanisms. In this study, we explored the relevance of CCCTC-binding factor (CTCF), a zinc finger-containing DNA-binding protein, which mediates long-range chromatin organization, for directed cell-fate determination.

Determinants of aggression against all health care workers in a large-sized university hospital.

Background: The paper aims to describe the 3-year incidence (2015/17) of aggressive acts against all healthcare workers to identify risk factors associated to violence among a variety of demographic and professional determinants of assaulted, and risk factors related to the circumstances surrounding these events.

Methods: A retrospective observational study of all 10,970 health workers in a large-sized Italian university hospital was performed. The data, obtained from the "Aggression Reporting Form", which must be completed by assaulted workers within 72 h of aggression, were collected for the following domains: worker assaulted (sex, age class, years worked); profession (nurses, medical doctors, non-medical support staff, administrative staff, midwives); aggressive acts (activity type during aggressive acts, season, time and location of aggressive acts); and type of aggressive acts (verbal, non-verbal, consequences, aggressors).

Gender differences in reporting workplace violence: a qualitative analysis of administrative records of violent episodes experienced by healthcare workers in a large public Italian hospital.

Objectives: This study aims to analyse, from a descriptive and qualitative point of view, the episodes of violence reported by healthcare workers (HCWs) in a large public Italian hospital. Qualitative analysis permits us to collect the victims' words used to describe the event and the ways in which they dealt with it. A comparison between genders was performed to better understand what type of different strategies could be used to improve the prevention of workplace violence for HCWs.

[Diagnostic imaging procedures and prescribing appropriateness: are administrative data a proper instrument? An experience from Piedmont Region (Northern Italy)].

Objectives: to assess at population level if healthcare administrative data can be suitable to identify variability and determinants of the prescribing rates for some diagnostic imaging procedures at high-risk of inappropriateness.

Design: population-based observational study.

Setting And Participants: Piedmont Region (Northern Italy) adult population (>20 years) in year 2013.

Medication discrepancies across multiple care transitions: A retrospective longitudinal cohort study in Italy.

Purpose: Medication discrepancies are defined as unexplained differences among regimens across different sites of care. The problem of medication discrepancies that occur during the entire care pathway from hospital admission to a local care setting discharge (namely all types of settings dedicated to formal care other than hospitals) has received little attention in the medical literature. The present study aims to (1) determine the prevalence of medication discrepancies that occur during the entire care pathway from hospital admission to local care setting discharge, (2) describe the discrepancy and medication type, and (3) identify potential risk factors for experiencing medication discrepancies in patient care transitions.

[Overcrowding in emergency departments: the case of the San Giovanni Battista (Molinette) university hospital in Turin (Italy)].

Overcrowding in Emergency Departments (ED) is a common phenomenon worldwide, especially in metropolitan areas. The main reason for overcrowding is not inappropriate emergency department use by patients but rather a shortage of available hospital beds which results in extended ED stays for patients who need emergency admission. The aims of this study, conducted at the San Giovanni Battista (Molinette) University hospital in Turin (Italy), were a) to verify the existence of overcrowding in the hospital ED and b) to test whether, as stated in the literature, overcrowding is due to restricted access to hospital beds for patients needing emergency admission, and to identify contributing factors.

[Managing waiting lists outpatients clinic. An experience in ASL 4--Turin].

Waiting lists issue is one of the main matters of every public health system. The aim of this study is to design a pathway in the Local public health authority 4 in Turin (Piedmont Region, Italy) as far as waiting lists management of outpatient service is concerned between 2004 and 2006. This study emphasizes a new approaching methodology based on: a) clearly defined criteria of clinic priorities to accessing public health facilities; b) working groups composed by a representing member of the District, one or more medical and general practitioners representing different equipe; c) monitoring priority criteria as objectives to both medical practitioners and equipe in order to assess them at the end of the year Results are encouraging because equipe correctly applied defined priority criteria so that they reached objectives improving their performance during considered period (66.

[Intestinal occlusion caused by Morgagni-Larrey diaphragmatic hernia].

Morgagni-Larrey's hernias, which are both infrequent and generally asymptomatic, are often diagnosed by chance during routine diagnostic tests performed for other pathologies. Usually congenital in adults, they are often small or only take the form of a pre-hernia lipoma. Intestinal occlusion is rarely described and frequently entails diagnostic difficulties before hydroaerial levels are demonstrated in the thoracic region.

[Chyloperitoneum after traumatic rupture of subdiaphragmatic thoracic duct. A clinical case].

Chyloperitoneum following traumatic rupture of the subdiaphragmatic thoracic duct is a very rare lesion and in fact no case was found when reviewing the last five years of international literature. The authors report a case of traumatic chyloperitoneum caused by a penetrating sidearm wound in a young 19-year-old woman. Emergency exploratory laparotomy enabled the precise identification of the site of the thoracic duct lesion and to proceed to its immediate suture.

[The radical treatment of sacrococcygeal pilonidal cysts].

Sacrococcygeal pilonidal disease may take a variety of forms: a silent chronic form, acute with abscess and a chronic or acute form with fistula. In the acute form surgery consists of the incision and evacuation of the purulent matter, postponing definitive surgery to a second phase, which is not always necessary, considering that in 60% of cases patients do not manifest any further symptoms. The final operation may be performed using a closed, semi-closed and open technique.

[Carcinoid of the cecal appendix].

Carcinoid tumors are infrequent but not exceptional neoplasias. The gastroenteric tract is affected in 80% of cases and almost half of these involve the appendix where they almost always represent an occasional finding after appendicectomy due to acute or subacute appendicitis. Although they have a low malignancy potential in this site, with a reduced index of metastasization and scant capacity to determine clinical symptoms, they are of considerable clinical importance in view of the prognostic and therapeutic type problems that their diagnosis entails.

[Our experience in the surgical treatment of perforated peptic ulcer].

The authors report their experience in the treatment of perforated peptic ulcer. From August 1992 to December 1995 a total of 23 patients (14 cases of gastric ulcer and 9 cases of duodenal ulcer), mean age 67.5 years, underwent emergency surgery for perforated peptic ulcer.

[Rare venous pathology: Mondor's disease].

A case of Mondor's disease is described. They remark etiopathogenesis and clinical signs of this rare disease that affects thoraco-epigastric vein or one of its confluents. They point to the benignity of the disease that tends to evolve to a spontaneous healing in a few weeks.

Diagnostic delay, clinical stage, and social class: a hospital based study.

Study Objective: To measure delay in admission to a large hospital and to study the role of social class and other potential determinants of delay.

Design: Interview of a 10% sample of newly diagnosed patients admitted to medical or surgical wards, and all those admitted for external hernia or colon cancer between June 1989 and May 1990.

Setting: The largest hospital in an Italian region of five million inhabitants.

[Use of house dust extracts in allergological diagnosis and therapy].

In this study (1980-1987) the Authors considered the incidence of sensitization to house dust in patients with respiratory allergic disease. The Authors identified 399 subjects with sensitization to house dust out of 1825 subjects sensitized to at least one of the tested allergens (21.9%).

[Housedust mites: their importance in the pathogenesis of respiratory allergic diseases in Piedmont].

In this study we have considered the importance of house dust mites (Dermatophagoides farinae and pteronyssinus) in the pathogenesis of respiratory allergic diseases in Piedmont. We have identified, from 1980 to 1986, 1530 subjects with sensitization to at least one of the tested allergens; 479 of these (31.3%) were allergic to both or to one of the tested mites.

[Evaluation of the prognostic value of certain biological indices in acute pancreatitis].

After a review of the aetiological, clinical and diagnostic aspects of acute pancreatitis, personal experience is reported of the prognostic indications supplied by the analysis of certain simple haematic parameters. The reliability of the results is confirmed. This technique will be used in a personal diagnostic and therapeutic protocol as a means of early identification of patients at the greatest risk.

[Computerized methods in the diagnosis and prognosis of surgically treated bilio-pancreatic diseases].

Multivaried and trend analyses were applied to a set of 27 periodic haematochemical checks on 37 patients given surgery for biliopancreatic pathology. Preoperative and postoperative data were separately analysed. The software employed was specially designed for the purpose.