Publications by authors named "Maria E Filice"

The advent of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in addition to cadaveric brain dissection allowed a comprehensive description of an adult human brain. Nonetheless, the knowledge of the development of the internal architecture of the brain is mostly incomplete. Our study aimed to provide a description of the anatomical variations of the major associational bundles, among fetal and early post-natal periods.

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Early diagnosis of congenital heart defect (CHD) increased in the last two decades, following technological evolution. A recent meta-analysis (Yu, 2020), on diagnostic accuracy in ultrasound detection of major CHD in the first trimester of pregnancy, reported an overall sensitivity of 75%. Ultrasound imaging of this case refers to a tricuspid valve dysplasia with right atriomegaly and pulmonary valve atresia diagnosed in a 13-week gestational-age fetus with low risk for chromosomal abnormalities.

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Joint involvement is a common manifestation of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and is described as a non-erosive mild synovitis. However some SLE patients may present a more severe joint involvement requiring aggressive therapy. We describe the case of a SLE patient with a severe arthritis unresponsive to methotrexate, successfully treated with anti-TNF-alpha drug as induction therapy and we report the results of a systematic literature review on the use of TNF-alpha inhibitors in SLE.

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Autophagy is a degradation process that acts in response to environmental stressors. Recently, autophagy has been detected in normal term, preeclamptic and intrauterine growth-restricted placentas. The object of this work was to investigate the presence of autophagy in first trimester voluntary interruption of pregnancy placental villi by the expression of autophagy-related proteins, light chain 3 (LC3), and Beclin-1.

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Clear cell adenocarcinoma is an extremely rare tumor of the head and neck region. We report a case of a 75-year-old Caucasian woman with a 10-day history of hemoptysis but with no pain or other significant symptoms. A head and neck computed tomography scan with contrast medium showed an irregular, soft-tissue-like, irregularly enhanced lesion of the base of the tongue extending to its posterolateral portion.

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Objective: The larynx is considered a secondary sexual organ. To demonstrate that sex hormones can directly influence laryngeal function, specific receptors in the vocal cord must be identified.

Materials And Methods: We searched for estrogen, progesterone and androgen receptors, using an immunohistochemical method, in normal human vocal cords (from 3 cadavers) and in samples of healthy vocal cords and of laryngeal carcinomas from 15 live subjects.

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Background: The cytological discrimination between benign and malignant follicular-patterned lesions of the thyroid can represent a diagnostic challenge, even for experienced pathologists. We evaluated the diagnostic use of protein expression of CXC chemokine receptor 4 (CXCR4) and galectin-3 (gal-3) that were found to be upregulated in papillary thyroid carcinoma compared to normal thyroid and of mesothelial cell surface protein recognized by monoclonal antibody Hector Battifora Mesothelial cell (HBME)-1 in thyroid tumors.

Methods: Expression of CXCR4, HBME-1, and gal-3 was examined immunohistochemically in total of 100 aspirates of thyroid lesions, categorized as benign (n = 22), indeterminate lesion (n = 43), suspicious of papillary thyroid carcinoma (n = 10), or malignant (n = 25) by preoperative cytology.

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