Overview of Cyanide Poisoning in Cattle from and Cultivars in Northwest Italy.

plants naturally produce dhurrin, a cyanogenic glycoside that may be hydrolysed to cyanide, resulting in often-lethal toxicoses. Ruminants are particularly sensitive to cyanogenic glycosides due to the active role of rumen microbiota in dhurrin hydrolysis. This work provides an overview of a poisoning outbreak that occurred in 5 farms in Northwest Italy in August 2022; a total of 66 cows died, and many others developed acute toxicosis after being fed on either cultivated () or wild Sorghum ().

Towards a common language in neurosurgical outcome evaluation: the NEON (NEurosurgical Outcome Network) proposal.

Background: The aim of this study was to achieve a consensus on the minimum set of outcome measures and predictors to be used in the neurosurgical practice and on the timing of outcome assessment.

Methods: A consensus building approach was employed. All neurosurgical departments in Lombardy (Italy) were invited to participate by the Carlo Besta Neurologic Institute IRCCS Foundation.

Post Surgical Management of WHO Grade II Meningiomas: Our Experience, the Role of Gamma Knife and a Literature Review.

Grade II meningiomas are rarer than Grade I, and when operated on, bear a higher risk of local recurrence, with a 5-year progression free survival (PFS) ranging from 59 to 90%. Radiotherapy (RT) or radiosurgery, such as Gamma Knife radiosurgery (GKRS) can reduce the risk of relapse in patients with residual disease, even if their role, particularly after gross total resection (GTR), is still under debate. Main goal of this study was to compare the outcomes of different post-surgical management of grade II meningiomas, grouped by degree of surgical removal (Simpson Grade); next in order we wanted to define the role of GKRS for the treatment of residual disease or relapse.

Preliminary Validation of FoRCaSco: A New Grading System for Cerebral and Cerebellar Cavernomas.

Objective: Surgical indications for cerebral cavernous malformations (CCMs) remain significantly center- and surgeon-dependent; available grading systems are potentially limited, as they do not include epileptologic and radiologic data. Several experienced authors proposed a new grading system for CCM and the first group of patients capable of providing its statistical validation was analyzed.

Methods: A retrospective series of 289 CCMs diagnosed between 2008 and 2021 was collected in a shared anonymous database among 9 centers.

Immune and cellular damage biomarkers to predict COVID-19 mortality in hospitalized patients.

Early prediction of COVID-19 in-hospital mortality relies usually on patients' preexisting comorbidities and is rarely reproducible in independent cohorts. We wanted to compare the role of routinely measured biomarkers of immunity, inflammation, and cellular damage with preexisting comorbidities in eight different machine-learning models to predict mortality, and evaluate their performance in an independent population. We recruited and followed-up consecutive adult patients with SARS-Cov-2 infection in two different Italian hospitals.

Automatic configuration of the Cassandra database using irace.

Database systems play a central role in modern data-centered applications. Their performance is thus a key factor in the efficiency of data processing pipelines. Modern database systems expose several parameters that users and database administrators can configure to tailor the database settings to the specific application considered.

Predictor Analysis in Radiofrequency Ablation of Benign Thyroid Nodules: A Single Center Experience.

Purpose: To confirm the efficacy of ultrasound (US) guided radiofrequency ablation (RFA) in the treatment of benign thyroid nodules, we evaluated as primary outcome the technical efficacy and clinical success in a single center dataset. The secondary outcome was to find a correlation between nodules' pre-treatment features and volume reduction rate (VRR) ≥75% at 12 months after RFA and during follow-up period.

Methods: This retrospective study included 119 consecutive patients (99 females, 20 males, 51.

Anxiety in neurosurgical patients undergoing nonurgent surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Objective: The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many countries into lockdown and has led to the postponement of nonurgent neurosurgical procedures. Although stress has been investigated during this pandemic, there are no reports on anxiety in neurosurgical patients undergoing nonurgent surgical procedures.

Methods: Neurosurgical patients admitted to hospitals in eastern Lombardy for nonurgent surgery after the lockdown prospectively completed a pre- and postoperative structured questionnaire.

Effectiveness of Gamma Knife Radiosurgery in Improving Psychophysical Performance and Patient's Quality of Life in Idiopathic Trigeminal Neuralgia.

Objective: To assess effectiveness of Gamma Knife Radiosurgery (GKRS) in improving quality of life (QoL) in patients with idiopathic trigeminal neuralgia (TN).

Methods: Between January 2001 and October 2013, 166 patients with medically resistant TN were treated at our institution with GKRS. Patients were divided into 2 groups: patients with typical TN (TTN) and patients with atypical TN (ATN).

Weight gain after subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation in Parkinson's disease is influenced by dyskinesias' reduction and electrodes' position.

Parkinson's disease is a common neurodegenerative disease that can be treated with pharmacological or surgical therapy. Subthalamic nucleus (STN) deep brain stimulation is a commonly used surgical option. A reported side effect of STN-DBS is weight gain: the aim of our study was to find those factors that determine weight gain, through one year-long observation of 32 patients that underwent surgery in our centre.

Predictors of radio-induced visual impairment after radiosurgery for uveal melanoma.

Aims: The aim of the present work is to assess the main predictors of the most clinically relevant radio-induced effects after Gamma Knife stereotactic radiosurgery (GKRS) for uveal melanoma (UM).

Materials And Methods: Medical records and three-dimensional dosimetry data of critical structures of 66 patients were retrospectively reviewed. Cox's proportional hazard model was used to identify clinical and dosimetric variables as independent risk factor for GKRS-related complications.

It Is Time to Reduce Free-Hand Manipulation: Case Report of Our Proposal for an Innovative 1-Step Cranioplasty.

Background: Cranioplasty is a well-known procedure, and autologous graft bone is usually considered the best choice in this procedure, but it cannot be used in conditions such as bone-infiltrating tumors, spheno-orbital en plaque meningiomas, and bone infections. Polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) offers great possibility of intraoperative adaption. We describe a case of 1-step cranioplasty performed in a patient with a meningeal fibrosarcoma using a custom-made silicon mold.

Gamma Knife Radiosurgery for Low-Grade Gliomas: Clinical Results at Long-Term Follow-Up of Tumor Control and Patients' Quality of Life.

Objective: First-line therapy for low-grade gliomas (LGGs) is surgery, in some cases followed by radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Gamma Knife radiosurgery (GKRS) has gained more relevance in the management of these tumors. The aim of this study was to assess efficacy and safety of GKRS for treatment of LGGs.

Immune and biochemical responses in skin differ between bovine hosts genetically susceptible and resistant to the cattle tick Rhipicephalus microplus.

Background: Ticks attach to and penetrate their hosts' skin and inactivate multiple components of host responses in order to acquire a blood meal. Infestation loads with the cattle tick, Rhipicephalus microplus, are heritable: some breeds carry high loads of reproductively successful ticks, whereas in others, few ticks feed and reproduce efficiently.

Methods: In order to elucidate the mechanisms that result in the different outcomes of infestations with cattle ticks, we examined global gene expression and inflammation induced by tick bites in skins from one resistant and one susceptible breed of cattle that underwent primary infestations with larvae and nymphs of R.

bnstruct: an R package for Bayesian Network structure learning in the presence of missing data.

Motivation: A Bayesian Network is a probabilistic graphical model that encodes probabilistic dependencies between a set of random variables. We introduce bnstruct, an open source R package to (i) learn the structure and the parameters of a Bayesian Network from data in the presence of missing values and (ii) perform reasoning and inference on the learned Bayesian Networks. To the best of our knowledge, there is no other open source software that provides methods for all of these tasks, particularly the manipulation of missing data, which is a common situation in practice.

Results of volume-staged fractionated Gamma Knife radiosurgery for large complex arteriovenous malformations: obliteration rates and clinical outcomes of an evolving treatment paradigm.

OBJECTIVE There are few reported series regarding volume-staged Gamma Knife radiosurgery (GKRS) for the treatment of large, complex, cerebral arteriovenous malformations (AVMs). The object of this study was to report the results of using volume-staged Gamma Knife radiosurgery for patients affected by large and complex AVMs. METHODS Data from 20 patients with large AVMs were prospectively included in the authors' AVM database between 2004 and 2012.

Gamma Knife Radiosurgery for Residual and Recurrent Vestibular Schwannomas After Previous Surgery: Clinical Results in a Series of 90 Patients and Review of the Literature.

Objective: Complete removal of vestibular schwannomas (VS) is not always achievable without any risk of disabling postoperative complications, especially in terms of facial nerve function. Moreover, even after gross total removal, a relevant rate of recurrence has been reported. The aim of this study is to validate Gamma Knife radiosurgery (GKRS) as an effective strategy to treat tumor regrowth after previous surgery.

Gamma Knife Radiosurgery as Primary Treatment for Large Vestibular Schwannomas: Clinical Results at Long-Term Follow-Up in a Series of 59 Patients.

Background: Gamma Knife radiosurgery (GKRS) represents a well-accepted treatment for small-medium vestibular schwannomas (VS); however, its application in larger VS is still controversial.

Methods: Among the 523 patients treated at our institution for VS between 2001 and 2010, we included 59 patients with a VS larger than 25 mm, treated by GKRS as primary treatment, not affected by neurofibromatosis type 2, and with a clinical follow-up of at least 36 months. Five patients underwent ventriculoperitoneal shunt placement before radiosurgery.

Dynamic contrast-enhanced and dynamic susceptibility contrast perfusion MR imaging for glioma grading: Preliminary comparison of vessel compartment and permeability parameters using hotspot and histogram analysis.

Introduction: Dynamic susceptibility contrast (DSC)-MRI is a perfusion technique with high diagnostic accuracy for glioma grading, despite limitations due to inherent susceptibility effects. Dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE)-MRI has been proposed as an alternative technique able to overcome the DSC-MRI shortcomings. This pilot study aimed at comparing the diagnostic accuracy of DSC and DCE-MRI for glioma grading by evaluating two estimates of blood volume, the DCE-derived plasma volume (Vp) and the DSC-derived relative cerebral blood volume (rCBV), and a measure of vessel permeability, the DCE-derived volume transfer constant K(trans).

Inverted positioning of Leksell Frame G for very low posterior fossa and brain stem lesions biopsies.

Background: The specificity of imaging alone in diagnosing posterior fossa lesions is insufficient, hence the importance of biopsy for diagnostic, therapeutic and prognostic purposes. Concerning the operative technique, many studies have demonstrated the superior safety of stereotactic biopsy over craniotomy and superior accuracy of frame-based systems over frameless ones as far as the posterior fossa is concerned; however versatile, frame-based instruments bear some intrinsic limitations in the positioning of frame in lower lesions mainly in short neck and kyphotic patients. For all these reasons, a more proficient technical bioptic approach to the posterior fossa and lower brainstem is sometimes required.

The current role of Gamma Knife radiosurgery in the management of intracranial haemangiopericytoma.

Background: Haemangiopericytomas (HPCs) are rare tumours characterised by aggressive behaviour with tendency to local recurrence and to metastasise. WHO grade II and grade III tumours show different progression-free survival and overall survival rates. Gross total tumour resection is still considered the treatment of choice.

A Bayesian Network analysis of the probabilistic relations between risk factors in the predisposition to type 2 diabetes.

In order to better understand the relations between different risk factors in the predisposition to type 2 diabetes, we present a Bayesian Network analysis of a large dataset, composed of three European population studies. Our results show, together with a key role of metabolic syndrome and of glucose after 2 hours of an Oral Glucose Tolerance Test, the importance of education, measured as the number of years of study, in the predisposition to type 2 diabetes.

Gamma Knife radiosurgery for vestibular schwannoma: clinical results at long-term follow-up in a series of 379 patients.

Object: Since the 1990 s, Gamma Knife radiosurgery (GKRS) has become the first-line treatment option for small- to medium-size vestibular schwannomas (VSs), especially in patients without mass effect-related symptoms and with functional hearing. The aim of this study was to assess the safety and efficacy of GKRS, in terms of tumor control, hearing preservation, and complications, in a series of 379 consecutive patients treated for VS.

Methods: Of 523 patients treated at the authors' institution for VS between 2001 and 2010, the authors included 379 who underwent GKRS as the primary treatment.