Personalized dendritic cell vaccine in multimodal individualized combination therapy improves survival in high-risk pediatric cancer patients.

A lot of hope for high-risk cancers is being pinned on immunotherapy but the evidence in children is lacking due to the rarity and limited efficacy of single-agent approaches. Here, we aim to assess the effectiveness of multimodal therapy comprising a personalized dendritic cell (DC) vaccine in children with relapsed and/or high-risk solid tumors using the N-of-1 approach in real-world scenario. A total of 160 evaluable events occurred in 48 patients during the 4-year follow-up.

[The hypercholesterolemias in pregnancy: their etiology and diagnostic significance considerations].

Objective: Analysis of gestational hypercholesterolemia incidence in Prague population of healthy pregnant women. Diagnostic significance of non-cholesterol sterols as suitable markers of endogenous synthesis and intestinal absorption in etiology of gestational hypercholesterolemia.

Design: Retrospective study.

[Vitamin D: Its physiology, pathophysiology and significance in etiopathogenesis of malignant diseases].

Vitamin D is an endogenous product of mammalian organisms from which an active agent of a steroid hormone nature is synthesized. These hormones participate in a variety of key metabolic processes in every nuclear cell, whether on endocrine, paracrine and autocrine or subcellular level. Vitamin D represents a very interesting molecule which participates in a great deal of body processes.

Dissemination of IncFII(K)-type plasmids in multiresistant CTX-M-15-producing Enterobacteriaceae isolates from children in hospital paediatric oncology wards.

In this study, extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL)-producing Enterobacteriaceae isolates in children with malignancies hospitalised at a paediatric oncology department in the Czech Republic were investigated. From June 2009 to January 2010, a total of 50 ESBL-producing faecal isolates of Enterobacteriaceae were obtained from 28 patients. These isolates were characterised with regard to ESBL enzymes, plasmid-mediated quinolone resistance genes, multilocus sequence typing (MLST) and plasmids conferring resistance to cephalosporins and fluoroquinolones.

Dynamics of caspase-3 activation and inhibition in embryonic micromasses evaluated by a photon-counting chemiluminescence approach.

Caspases are key enzymatic components of the intracellular apoptotic machinery, and their role in mammalian systems is often studied using fluoromethylketone (FMK) inhibitors. Despite many advantages of such approach, efficiency of the inhibitor and membrane permeability speed are often questioned. This work therefore focuses on an exact evaluation of caspase-3 FMK inhibition dynamics in camptothecin-induced mesenchymal micromasses.