Improving outcomes of in situ split liver transplantation in Italy over the last 25 years.

Background & Aims: Split liver transplant(ation) (SLT) is still considered a challenging procedure that is by no means widely accepted. We aimed to present data on 25-year trends in SLT in Italy, and to investigate if, and to what extent, outcomes have improved nationwide during this time.

Methods: The study included all consecutive SLTs performed from May 1993 to December 2019, divided into three consecutive periods: 1993-2005, 2006-2014, and 2015-2019, which match changes in national allocation policies.

Early COPD diagnosis and treatment: A case report.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) refers to a group of widely diffuse diseases that cause airflow blockage characterized by persistent respiratory symptoms such as dyspnea, chronic cough, recurrent wheezing, chronic sputum production, and progressive restricted airflow associated with exacerbations. COPD is the third leading cause of death worldwide and can only be treated not cured. Pulmonary function tests do not permit the identification of initial obstructive airways disease.

Structural discrimination analysis for constraint selection in protein modeling.

Motivation: Protein structure modeling can be improved by the use of distance constraints between amino acid residues, provided such data reflects-at least partially-the native tertiary structure of the target system. In fact, only a small subset of the native contact map is necessary to successfully drive the model conformational search, so one important goal is to obtain the set of constraints with the highest true-positive rate, lowest redundancy and greatest amount of information. In this work, we introduce a constraint evaluation and selection method based on the point-biserial correlation coefficient, which utilizes structural information from an ensemble of models to indirectly measure the power of each constraint in biasing the conformational search toward consensus structures.

Stem cells therapy in acute myocardial infarction: a new era?

Stem cells transplantation after acute myocardial infarction (AMI) has been claimed to restore cardiac function. However, this therapy is still restricted to experimental studies and clinical trials. Early un-blinded studies suggested a benefit from stem cell therapy following AMI.

New York Heart Association class associated with imaging is a prognostic mortality risk predictor in interstitial lung diseases.

Objective: Mortality risk factors as forced vital capacity, diffuse lung capacity for carbon monoxide, and 6-minutes' walk test were studied in clinical trials monitoring patients affected by interstitial lung diseases (ILD). However, these parameters showed scarce accuracy. Our aim was to identify New York Heart Association (NHYA) class, in association with high resolution computed tomography (HRCT) and somatostatin receptor scintigraphy (Octreoscan), as a prognostic mortality risk factor in ILD patients.