Caring for children with cancer evacuated from Ukraine: The patients' perception.

Background And Aims: Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, many pediatric oncology centers welcomed evacuated patients. To better understanding the needs of patients and families arriving at two Lombardy hospitals in the period March to November 2022, an anonymous questionnaire investigated the families' backgrounds, feelings, and impressions about hospitality and care.

Methods: Twenty questions investigated how patients had reached Italy, from whom they had received help (logistically/financially); the emotions regarding their status as war refugees; the knowledge, expectations, and opinions about Italy and Italians; the quality of medical care received and the relationships with the healthcare staff; lastly, suggestions to improve assistance.

Optimizing reirradiation for relapsed medulloblastoma: identifying the ideal patient and tumor profiles.

Background: First-line therapies for medulloblastoma(MBL) are obtaining higher survival-rates while decreasing late-effects, but treatment at relapse is not standardized. We report here the experience with MBL re-irradiation(re-RT), its timing and outcome in different clinical settings and tumor groups.

Methods: Patient's staging/treatment at diagnosis, histotypes/molecular subgroups, relapse site/s, re-treatments outcome are reported.

Right posterior hypometabolism in Pisa syndrome of Parkinson's disease: A key to explain body schema perception deficit?

Background: Pisa syndrome (PS) is a trunk postural abnormality in Parkinson's disease (PD). Its pathophysiology is still debated: peripheral and central mechanisms have been hypothesized.

Objective: To investigate the role of nigrostriatal dopaminergic deafferentation and of brain metabolism impairment in the onset PS in PD patients.

Posterior fossa syndrome in a population of children and young adults with medulloblastoma: a retrospective, multicenter Italian study on incidence and pathophysiology in a histologically homogeneous and consecutive series of 136 patients.

Introduction: Posterior fossa syndrome (PFS) is a set of debilitating complications that can occur after surgery for posterior fossa tumors. This study aimed to assess the preoperative radiological and surgical risk factors for the onset of PFS in a histologically homogeneous population of children with medulloblastoma and compare it to a similar population of young adults.

Methods: Included patients underwent posterior fossa surgery for medulloblastoma at 11 Italian neurosurgical wards (2003-2019) and were referred to Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori in Milan (INT) for postoperative treatments.

Metabolic correlates of olfactory dysfunction in COVID-19 and Parkinson's disease (PD) do not overlap.

Purpose: Hyposmia is a common feature of COVID-19 and Parkinson's disease (PD). As parkinsonism has been reported after COVID-19, a link has been hypothesized between SARS-CoV2 infection and PD. We aimed to evaluate brain metabolic correlates of isolated persistent hyposmia after mild-to-moderate COVID-19 and to compare them with metabolic signature of hyposmia in drug-naïve PD patients.

Cancer treatment in disabled children.

The incidence of cancer in children with intellectual disability has been poorly documented. We report our experience of treating children and adolescents with cancer and intellectual disability (40 patients), from 2004 to 2018. A treatment-sparing approach was adopted for 6 patients with severe intellectual impairment to minimize toxicity: a child with postpartum asphyxia and medulloblastoma did not receive radiotherapy; 1 patient with mitochondrial encephalopathy and a testicular germ cell tumor did not receive bleomycin and lung metastasectomy; 2 patients (1 with Down + West syndrome + Wilms tumor (WT) and 1 with Denys-Drash syndrome + WT) did not receive vincristine; 1 child with corpus callosum agenesis and anaplastic ependymoma did not receive chemotherapy; 1 child with structural chromosomal aberrations and a primitive neuro-ectodermal tumor received personalized chemotherapy.

Adverse events linked with the use of chimeric and humanized anti-CD20 antibodies in children with idiopathic nephrotic syndrome.

Aims: Anti-CD20 antibodies are increasingly being used to treat idiopathic nephrotic syndrome (INS) in children. While they may allow steroid and calcineurin inhibitor withdrawal, repeated infusions of anti-CD20 antibodies are often required to maintain remission. Data on their potential toxicity in INS are needed, to consider repeated infusions.

The immunolocalization of PGP 9.5 in normal human kidney and renal cell carcinoma.

The Authors studied the localization of protein gene product (PGP) 9.5-like immunoreactivity in normal human kidney tissue and compared the results with the same immunostaining in renal cell carcinoma. PGP 9.