Diagnostic accuracy of case-identification algorithms for heart failure in the general population using routinely collected health data: a systematic review.

Background: Heart failure (HF), affecting 1-4% of adults in industrialized countries, is a major public health priority. Several algorithms based on administrative health data (HAD) have been developed to detect patients with HF in a timely and inexpensive manner, in order to perform real-world studies at the population level. However, their reported diagnostic accuracy is highly variable.

Development and user-oriented visualization of health care composite indicators at district level: territorial health profiles.

Background: after the recent reform of territorial healthcare, districts have been designated within the Lombardy Regional Health System to coordinate and deliver territorial care. This entails the need of readily available information to measure the quality of provided healthcare, identify critical areas for improvement, monitor the balance between demand and supply of healthcare services.

Objectives: to present the development of a dynamic evaluation system of processes and outcomes resulting from the integration of territorial and hospital care, based on a set of composite indicators, called 'health profiles', and their visualization and release through a dedicated web platform.

Psychophysical, electrofunctional, and morphological evaluation in naïve neovascular AMD patients treated with intravitreal anti-VEGF.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the retinal morpho-functional characteristics of patients with neovascular wet age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) treated with intravitreal injection (IV) of aflibercept (AFL).

Methods: The study was conducted on 35 patients previously diagnosed with type 1 nAMD who received a fixed-dosing regimen of aflibercept injections over 12 months. The goal was to assess trends in visual abilities over time by measuring visual acuity (VA), contrast sensitivity (CS), visual evoked potentials (VEPs), and spectral domain-optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT).

Heart failure 'the cancer of the heart': the prognostic role of the HLM score.

Aims: The multi-systemic effects of heart failure (HF) resemble the spread observed during cancer. We propose a new score, named HLM, analogous to the TNM classification used in oncology, to assess the prognosis of HF. HLM refers to H: heart damage, L: lung involvement, and M: systemic multiorgan involvement.

Systematic analysis of drug combinations against Gram-positive bacteria.

Drug combinations can expand options for antibacterial therapies but have not been systematically tested in Gram-positive species. We profiled ~8,000 combinations of 65 antibacterial drugs against the model species Bacillus subtilis and two prominent pathogens, Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pneumoniae. Thereby, we recapitulated previously known drug interactions, but also identified ten times more novel interactions in the pathogen S.

Guillain-Barré syndrome in patients dying with COVID-19 in Italy: a retrospective study.

Introduction: We presented a four-case series of COVID-19 related deaths occurred in patients with Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) between February 2020 and January 2022 in Italy.

Methods: They were extracted from 8,436 medical charts of COVID-19 patients dying. All cases, ranged 48-73 years, showed classical GBS clinical onset - limb weakness, sensory deficits, hypoareflexia - and three of them were admitted in intensive care unit (ICU) for ventilator support.

Multi-parametric MRI in the diagnosis and scoring of gastrointestinal acute graft-versus-host disease.

Objectives: Acute gastrointestinal graft-versus-host disease (GI-aGVHD) is a severe complication of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Diagnosis relies on clinical, endoscopic, and pathological investigations. Our purpose is to assess the value of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in the diagnosis, staging, and prediction of GI-aGVHD-related mortality.

Six-month multidisciplinary follow-up in multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children: An Italian single-center experience.

Background: A severe multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) related to SARS-CoV-2 has been described after infection. A limited number of reports have analyzed the long-term complications related to pro-inflammatory status in MIS-C. We evaluated multiorgan impairment at the 6-month follow-up in MIS-C.

Cultivation-independent genomes greatly expand taxonomic-profiling capabilities of mOTUs across various environments.

Background: Taxonomic profiling is a fundamental task in microbiome research that aims to detect and quantify the relative abundance of microorganisms in biological samples. Available methods using shotgun metagenomic data generally depend on the deposition of sequenced and taxonomically annotated genomes, usually from cultures of isolated strains, in reference databases (reference genomes). However, the majority of microorganisms have not been cultured yet.

proGenomes3: approaching one million accurately and consistently annotated high-quality prokaryotic genomes.

The interpretation of genomic, transcriptomic and other microbial 'omics data is highly dependent on the availability of well-annotated genomes. As the number of publicly available microbial genomes continues to increase exponentially, the need for quality control and consistent annotation is becoming critical. We present proGenomes3, a database of 907 388 high-quality genomes containing 4 billion genes that passed stringent criteria and have been consistently annotated using multiple functional and taxonomic databases including mobile genetic elements and biosynthetic gene clusters.

Glut1 deficiency syndrome throughout life: clinical phenotypes, intelligence, life achievements and quality of life in familial cases.

Background: Glut1 deficiency syndrome (Glut1-DS) is a rare metabolic encephalopathy. Familial forms are poorly investigated, and no previous studies have explored aspects of Glut1-DS over the course of life: clinical pictures, intelligence, life achievements, and quality of life in adulthood. Clinical, biochemical and genetic data in a cohort of familial Glut1-DS cases were collected from medical records.

A Survey on Methodological Issues of Clinical Research Studies Reviewed by Independent Ethic Committees during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Italy.

The struggle for information and the hasty search for answers caused by the COVID-19 pandemic threatened the possibility of lowering study quality, as well as ethical committees' review standards during the outbreak. Our investigation aimed to assess the impact of COVID-19 on the quality of clinical research studies submitted to Italian Ethics Committees in the period between April and July 2020. All 91 Italian ethics committees were contacted via email in order to collect anonymized information on the type and quality of COVID-19-related studies submitted to each committee during the study period.

Sleep Quality and Insomnia Severity among Italian University Students: A Latent Profile Analysis.

Insomnia is a widespread sleep disorder associated with physical and mental health conditions. Although the heterogeneity of insomnia presentations has been acknowledged, research investigating clinically meaningful insomnia subtypes is still ongoing. This study aimed at exploring insomnia subtypes according to widely-used measures of symptoms severity and sleep quality among Italian university students using a latent profile analysis.

Biosynthetic potential of the global ocean microbiome.

Natural microbial communities are phylogenetically and metabolically diverse. In addition to underexplored organismal groups, this diversity encompasses a rich discovery potential for ecologically and biotechnologically relevant enzymes and biochemical compounds. However, studying this diversity to identify genomic pathways for the synthesis of such compounds and assigning them to their respective hosts remains challenging.

Clinical Phenotypes of Atrial Fibrillation and Mortality Risk-A Cluster Analysis from the Nationwide Italian START Registry.

Patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) still experience a high mortality rate despite optimal antithrombotic treatment. We aimed to identify clinical phenotypes of patients to stratify mortality risk in AF. Cluster analysis was performed on 5171 AF patients from the nationwide START registry.

Calorie restriction improves metabolic state independently of gut microbiome composition: a randomized dietary intervention trial.

Background: The gut microbiota has been suggested to play a significant role in the development of overweight and obesity. However, the effects of calorie restriction on gut microbiota of overweight and obese adults, especially over longer durations, are largely unexplored.

Methods: Here, we longitudinally analyzed the effects of intermittent calorie restriction (ICR) operationalized as the 5:2 diet versus continuous calorie restriction (CCR) on fecal microbiota of 147 overweight or obese adults in a 50-week parallel-arm randomized controlled trial, the HELENA Trial.

Unravelling the collateral damage of antibiotics on gut bacteria.

Antibiotics are used to fight pathogens but also target commensal bacteria, disturbing the composition of gut microbiota and causing dysbiosis and disease. Despite this well-known collateral damage, the activity spectrum of different antibiotic classes on gut bacteria remains poorly characterized. Here we characterize further 144 antibiotics from a previous screen of more than 1,000 drugs on 38 representative human gut microbiome species.

mOTUs: Profiling Taxonomic Composition, Transcriptional Activity and Strain Populations of Microbial Communities.

The mOTU profiler, or mOTUs for short, is a software tool that enables the profiling of microbial communities in terms of their taxonomic composition, relative abundance of metabolically active members, and diversity of strain populations. To this end, it maintains a database of single-copy phylogenetic marker gene sequences, which are used as a reference to which short read metagenomic and metatranscriptomic reads are mapped for the identification and quantification of microbial taxa. Here, we describe the most common use cases of the mOTU profiler in two basic protocols.

Metabolic cooperation and spatiotemporal niche partitioning in a kefir microbial community.

Microbial communities often undergo intricate compositional changes yet also maintain stable coexistence of diverse species. The mechanisms underlying long-term coexistence remain unclear as system-wide studies have been largely limited to engineered communities, ex situ adapted cultures or synthetic assemblies. Here, we show how kefir, a natural milk-fermenting community of prokaryotes (predominantly lactic and acetic acid bacteria) and yeasts (family Saccharomycetaceae), realizes stable coexistence through spatiotemporal orchestration of species and metabolite dynamics.

Statins and Major Adverse Limb Events in Patients with Peripheral Artery Disease: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Background:  Statins are guidelines recommended in patients with peripheral artery disease (PAD) for the prevention of cardiovascular (CV) events. Comprehensive meta-data on the impact of statins on major adverse limb events (MALE) in PAD patients are lacking. We examined the association of statin use with MALE in patients with PAD.

Changes in Plasma Short-Chain Fatty Acid Levels after Dietary Weight Loss Among Overweight and Obese Adults over 50 Weeks.

Gut microbial-derived short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) may regulate energy homeostasis and exert anti-carcinogenic, immunomodulatory and anti-inflammatory effects. Smaller trials indicate that dietary weight loss may lead to decreased SCFA production, but findings have been inconclusive. SCFA concentrations were measured by HPLC-MS/MS in plasma samples of 150 overweight or obese adults in a trial initially designed to evaluate the metabolic effects of intermittent (ICR) versus continuous (CCR) calorie restriction (NCT02449148).

proGenomes2: an improved database for accurate and consistent habitat, taxonomic and functional annotations of prokaryotic genomes.

Microbiology depends on the availability of annotated microbial genomes for many applications. Comparative genomics approaches have been a major advance, but consistent and accurate annotations of genomes can be hard to obtain. In addition, newer concepts such as the pan-genome concept are still being implemented to help answer biological questions.