Cystic Fibrosis (CF) is a life-shortening autosomal recessive disease caused by mutations in the CFTR gene, resulting in functional impairment of the encoded ion channel. F508del mutation, a trinucleotide deletion, is the most frequent cause of CF affecting approximately 80% of persons with cystic fibrosis (pwCFs). Even though current pharmacological treatments alleviate the F508del-CF disease symptoms there is no definitive cure.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study focuses on developing an active and biodegradable packaging using electrospinning, with polylactic acid (PLA) as the matrix and bamboo leaf extract (BLE) as the antioxidant compound. The research systematically evaluates the relationship among process parameters, material properties, and structure. The electrospun membranes were produced using different BLE contents (10 wt%, 20 wt%, 30 wt%, and 40 wt%) and characterized by their morphology, mechanical properties, wettability, and antioxidant activity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground/aims: Optimization of bowel preparation for small bowel capsule endoscopy (SBCE) is debated. Guidelines recommend 2 L of iso-osmolar polyethylene glycol (PEG) to improve SBCE visibility. We compared the efficacy of the standard 2 L PEG solution with a 1 L PEG plus ascorbate (PEG-ASC) preparation, which has already been established for large-bowel preparation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Many patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) lack access to highly effective approved targeted therapeutics due to multiple gaps in biomarker testing. Challenges in comprehensive molecular testing include complexities associated with the need to assess the presence of multiple variants, costs of running multiple sequential assays per sample, high assay quality control (QC) failure rates, clinical need for rapid turn-around time (TAT) to initiate therapy, and insufficient tissue samples. The ASPYRE-Lung NSCLC assay addresses gaps in multiplexed testing by simultaneously analyzing DNA and RNA, detecting 114 actionable genomic variants across 11 genes, consistent with current NSCLC treatment guidelines.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBenef Microbes
December 2024
Objective: To explore the relationships among anxiety, depression, and headache-related disability in a pediatric clinic-based retrospective cross-sectional study.
Background: Anxiety and depression are commonly considered comorbidities of headache disorders and are frequently seen in children and adolescents. These conditions can contribute to disability and may have a cumulative impact.
Antioxidants are essential for mitigating oxidative stress and maintaining vascular health. Endothelial colony-forming cells (ECFCs) are pivotal in endothelial regeneration and angiogenesis and serve as a model to study the diversity of endothelial cells across various organs. This study evaluated the effects of peel, pulp, and seed extracts from Jacq.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Chromatogr B Analyt Technol Biomed Life Sci
October 2024
The increased use of drugs of abuse urges forensic toxicologists to create quick, simple, minimally invasive sampling techniques for biological fluids combined with analytical methods assuring accurate results. To this purpose, a method was developed aimed at quantifying 18 drugs of abuse and metabolites in DBS. Validation of the method was conducted by spiking blank whole blood with the analytes on Capitainer® B cards.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Primary uveal melanoma is the most common intraocular malignancy in adults. Almost 50% of patients die from metastatic disease despite successful local treatment. The objective was to estimate the incidence of metastasis and survival in patients with primary uveal melanoma.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To introduce a novel approach to analyzing pattern reversal visual evoked potentials (prVEPs) using a difference-of-gammas model-based fitting method.
Methods: prVEP was recorded from uninjured youth ages 11-19 years during pre- or postseason sports evaluation. A difference-of-gammas model fit was used to extract the amplitude, peak time, and peak width of each of four gamma components.
Microalgae have emerged as promising photosynthetic microorganisms for biofabricating advanced tissue constructs, with improved oxygenation and reduced reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. However, their use in the engineering of human tissues has been limited due to their intrinsic growth requirements, which are not compatible with human cells. In this study, we first formulated alginate-gelatin (AlgGel) hydrogels with increasing densities of.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis review explores the roles of the cholinergic system in the heart, comprising the neuronal and non-neuronal cholinergic systems. Both systems are essential for maintaining cardiac homeostasis by regulating the release of acetylcholine (ACh). A reduction in ACh release is associated with the early onset of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), and increasing evidence supports the protective roles of ACh against CVD.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe role of cholesterol, mainly low-density lipoproteins (LDL-C), as a causal risk factor for atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) is now established and accepted by the international scientific community. Based on this evidence, the European and American guidelines recommend early risk stratification and "rapid" achievement of the suggested target according to the risk estimation to reduce the number of major cardiovascular events. Prolonged exposure over the years to high levels of LDL-C is one of the determining factors in the development and progression of atherosclerotic plaque, on which the action of conventional risk factors (cigarette smoking, excess weight, sedentary lifestyle, arterial hypertension, diabetes mellitus) as well as non-conventional risk factors (gut microbiota, hyperuricemia, inflammation), alone or in combination, favors the destabilization of the atherosclerotic lesion with rupture/fissuration/ulceration and consequent formation of intravascular thrombosis, which leads to the acute clinical manifestations of acute coronary syndromes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSilk fibroin (SF) is a natural protein extracted fromsilkworm thread. From its common use in the textile industry, it emerged as a biomaterial with promising biochemical and mechanical properties for applications in the field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. In this study, we evaluate for the first time the effects of SF on cardiac bioink formulations containing cardiac spheroids (CSs).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Despite the demonstrated greater efficacy of microprocessor knees (MPK) over mechanical knees (MK), the latter is still widely used by persons with transfemoral amputation. Besides motivations related to local insurance policies, quality of life (QoL) and satisfaction with the prosthesis play a key role in user preference.
Objective: The aim of this study is to compare QoL and satisfaction in a large sample of MPK and MK users and to assess how these outcomes are explained by clinical and demographic characteristics.
Introduction: Mechanical thrombectomy (MT) is the standard treatment for acute ischemic stroke (AIS) due to anterior large vessel occlusion (LVO). Despite successful recanalization, some patients remain disabled after 3 months. Mechanisms that can cause futile recanalization (FR) are still largely unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Purpose: Isolated insular strokes (IIS) are a rare occurrence due to the frequent concomitant involvement of adjacent territories, supplied by the M2 segment of the middle cerebral artery (MCA), and clinical aspects are sometimes contradictory. We aimed to describe clinical and radiological characteristics of a pure IIS case series, focusing on its functional outcome and cardiac involvement.
Methods: We identified 15 isolated insular ischemic strokes from a pool of 563 ischemic strokes occurred between January 2020 and December 2021.
IEEE Internet Things J
December 2023
Efficient design of integrated sensing and communication systems can minimize signaling overhead by reducing the size and/or rate of feedback in reporting channel state information (CSI). To minimize the signaling overhead when performing sensing operations at the transmitter, this paper proposes a procedure to reduce the feedback rate. We consider a threshold-based sensing measurement and reporting procedure, such that the CSI is transmitted only if the channel variation exceeds a threshold.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: The drug most frequently used for thrombolysis in cases of acute ischemic stroke (AIS) is alteplase. However, there is moderate-to-high-quality evidence that tenecteplase has similar or higher efficacy and safety. With improved pharmacokinetic properties over alteplase, tenecteplase could be a significant advantage in treating AIS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInnate immune responses to coronavirus infections are highly cell specific. Tissue-resident macrophages, which are infected by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in patients but are inconsistently infected in vitro, exert critical but conflicting effects by secreting both antiviral type I interferons (IFNs) and tissue-damaging inflammatory cytokines. Steroids, the only class of host-targeting drugs approved for the treatment of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), indiscriminately suppress both responses, possibly impairing viral clearance.
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