Publications by authors named "Giustina de Silvestro"

The Italian Registry of Therapeutic Apheresis (IRTA) collects clinical data on patients undergoing therapeutic apheresis procedures throughout the national territory, with the main objective of improving the quality and safety of the care provided to the patient. Given the importance of centralizing the collection and analysis of information on therapeutic apheresis, the National Blood Center (NBC), at the request of the Italian Scientific Society of Hemapheresis and Cellular Manipulation (SIdEM), has included IRTA in the Information System of Transfusion Services (SISTRA), which is the information system of the Ministry of Health for the exchange of data on blood and its derivatives between the Italian Regions and the NBC. This manuscript reports IRTA activity data for 2023 maintaining the general approach introduced in previous manuscripts to facilitate comparison with already published activity data (2020-2022).

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Therapeutic apheresis refers to a group of extracorporeal blood processing procedures used in the treatment of a variety of systemic diseases. These complex procedures are burdened by adverse reactions related to both procedures and underlying medical conditions. Given the importance of centralizing the collection and the analysis of information on therapeutic apheresis, the Italian National Blood Center (NBC), at the request of the Italian Scientific Society of Hemapheresis and Cell Manipulation (SIdEM), implemented the Italian Registry of Therapeutic Apheresis (IRTA) including it in the Information System of Transfusion Services (SISTRA), coordinated by the NBC.

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In 2019, the Italian National Blood Center (NBC), at the request of the Italian Scientific Society of Haemapheresis and Cell Manipulation (SIdEM), included the Italian Registry of Therapeutic Apheresis (IRTA) in the Information System of Transfusion Services (SISTRA), whose activity is coordinated by the NBC. The IRTA provides institutions and scientific societies with a wide range of information including therapeutic procedures and outcomes of treated patients. The Italian National Health Service offers therapeutic apheresis for patients with various conditions, but it is mainly the patient with haematological and/or neurological disorders who turns to the apheresis centres as evidenced by the activity data of 2021.

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Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2) caused outbreaks of the pandemic starting from the end of 2019 and, despite ongoing vaccination campaigns, still influences health services and economic factors globally. Understanding immune protection elicited by natural infection is of critical importance for public health policy. This knowledge is instrumental to set scientific parameters for the release of "immunity pass" adopted with different criteria across Europe and other countries and to provide guidelines for the vaccination of COVID-19 recovered patients.

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Objectives And Background: Convalescent plasma (CP) has been used worldwide to contrast SARS-CoV-2 infection. Since April 2020, it has also been used in the treatment of patients with COVID-19 in the Veneto region (Italy), along with all the other available drugs and therapeutic tools. Here we report data analysis and clinical results in 1,517 COVID-19 inpatients treated with CP containing high-titre neutralizing anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies (CCP).

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The psychosocial consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic caused multifaceted challenges in clinical and therapeutic practices. This was the case at the Therapeutic Apheresis Unit of the Padua University Hospital too. Several published reports describe the increase in alcohol and food addiction diseases.

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The National Blood Centre (NBC) at the request of the Italian Scientific Society of Haemapheresis and Cell Manipulation (SIdEM) has funded and developed a software dedicated to the collection of data related to therapeutic apheresis procedures, known as the Italian Registry of Therapeutic Apheresis (IRTA). Although on a voluntary basis, participation in the registry was widespread. The data collected includes type and number of procedures, patients treated and their outcomes, and reported adverse events to the procedures.

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Background: Convalescent plasma (CP) has been used in the past in various pandemics, in particular in H1N1, SARS and MERS infections. In Spring 2020, when ongoing the SARS-CoV-2 pandemics, the Veneto Region (V-R) has proposed setting-up an anti-SARS-CoV-2 CP (CCP) Bank, with the aim of preparing a supply of CCP immediately available in case of subsequest epidemic waves.

Materials And Methods: Key-points to be developed for a quick set-up of the V-R CCP Bank have been recruitment of donors recovered from COVID-19 infection, laboratory analysis for the biological qualification of the CCP units, including titre of neutralizing antibodies and reduction of pathogens, according to National Blood Centre (CNS) Directives, adaptation of the V-R Information Technology systems and cost analysis.

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Mosquitoes of the genus transmit arboviruses of great importance to human health as dengue, chikungunya, Zika and yellow fever. The tiger mosquito can play an important role as arboviral vector, especially when is absent or present at low levels. Remarkably, the rapid worldwide spreading of the tiger mosquito is expanding the risk of arboviral transmission also to temperate areas, and the autochthonous cases of chikungunya, dengue and Zika in Europe emphasize the need for improved monitoring and control.

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Passive immunotherapy with plasma derived from patients convalescent from SARS-CoV-2 infection can be a promising approach in the treatment of COVID-19 patients. It is important that Blood Establishments are prepared to satisfy requests for immune plasma by defining the requirements applicable to plasma donors and the standards for preparation, qualification, storage, distribution and control of use of the product. This position paper is aimed to give recommendations on biological characteristics of a plasma preparation from convalescent donors and to support the evaluation of this therapeutic approach in more rigorous investigations.

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Passive immunotherapy with plasma derived from convalescent patients recovering from SARS-CoV-2 infection can be a promising approach in the treatment of COVID-19 patients. It is important that blood establishments are ready to satisfy requests for immune plasma by defining the requirements applicable to plasma donors and the standards for preparation, qualification, storage, distribution, and control of product use. This Position paper aims to give recommendations on the biological characteristics of a plasma preparation from convalescent donors and to support the evaluation of this therapeutic approach in more rigorous investigations.

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Unlabelled: . Parathyroid hormone (PTH) is a linear peptide constituted by 84 amino acids and active in its 1-84 form, but a wide range of PTH forms produced by its post-transcriptional modifications are present in blood. Many assays with different specificities are commercially available.

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Introduction: Therapeutic apheresis (TA) represents a treatment option for pre-existing conditions or diseases occurring during gestation. Although pregnancy is not a contraindication per se, due to the lack of evidence-based guidelines and presumed risk of maternal/fetal adverse events there is a general resistance to its application.

Material And Methods: Between January 2005 and August 2017, at the Apheresis Unit of the University Hospital of Padua 936 TA procedures were performed during 57 pregnancies in 48 patients: 813 Plasma Exchange sessions, 119 Immunoadsorptions, 4 Red Blood Cell exchanges.

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The priority objectives of the Italian Transfusion System are self-sufficiency for blood components and for plasma-derived products. Currently the collection activity guarantees self-sufficiency of blood components, including plasma for clinical use, but not for plasma-derived drugs, ie albumin and immunoglobulins in particular. The National Plasma Program of 2016-2020, issued a Ministerial Decree on December, 2, 2016, aims to achieve this goal, both by increasing the collection of plasma and therefore its transfer to plasma derivation companies, and by increasing the appropriateness of the requests.

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The medieval history of several populations often suffers from scarcity of contemporary records resulting in contradictory and sometimes biased interpretations by historians. This is the situation with the population of the island of Crete, which remained relatively undisturbed until the Middle Ages when multiple wars, invasions, and occupations by foreigners took place. Historians have considered the effects of the occupation of Crete by the Arabs (in the 9th and 10th centuries C.

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In Italy therapeutic apheresis procedures were carried out for the first time in the '70s. in the '80s the Italian Society of Hemapheresis was founded, formerly named SIDE, now SIdEM (Italian Society of Hemapheresis and Cellular Manipulation). From the beginning, the collection and the analysis of activity data have been seen as a way to improve the knowledge on mechanisms of action, to identify the correct rationale in order to intervene in the most appropriate clinical indications.

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The study aimed to evaluate the clinical significance of laboratory findings in patients with catastrophic antiphospholipid syndrome (CAPS) and to report the effects of a well-defined treatment protocol in 14 consecutive cases. Thirteen patients (12 presenting one and one presenting two episodes of CAPS) were consecutively treated and monitored between 1986 and 2017. Antiphospholipid antibody (aPL) characteristics of the patients were compared with those of 64 matched controls (45 antiphospholipid syndrome patients and 19 aPL carriers) who did not develop CAPS during the same mean follow-up period (12 years ± 9.

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Background: Alteration of T-follicular helper (TFH) and regulatory (TFR) subpopulations may contribute to the development of auto-reactive B-cell.

Objective: To investigate whether changes in TFH and TFR subsets are associated with abnormal IgG synthesis in blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients.

Methods: Paired blood and CSF samples were obtained from 31 untreated relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) patients at diagnosis.

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Since the 80s the Italian Society of Apheresis and Cell Manipulation (SIdEM) started to monitor the adverse events of therapeutic apheresis (TA) procedures. In subsequent years other variables were added and a national TA registry was created, with a fluctuating adhesion over the years. From 2010 to 2013 the Registry was shared with the Italian Society of Nephrology (SIN): the collection method required data of each patient and a lack of adhesion was observed, mainly because of a heavy workload needed to fill out all the fields.

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Organ transplantation represents the preferred treatment option for many patients in terminal organ failure. The half-life of transplanted organs, however, is still far from being satisfactory with the vast majority of the organs failing within the first two decades following transplantation. At this stage, it has become apparent that rejection (prevalently mediated by humoral events) remains the primary cause of graft loss after the first year.

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Introduction: Despite prophylaxis, a small proportion of RhD-negative women may develop anti-D antibodies after a sensitizing event occurring during pregnancy or delivery of a D-positive baby. Intrauterine transfusion (IUT) is the treatment of choice in case of fetal anemia, but it cannot be performed early during pregnancy. Combined treatment with therapeutic plasma-exchange (TPE) and intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) can avoid or delay IUT.

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