Intravenous iodinated contrast media are commonly used in clinical practice, ranging from medical imaging to interventional radiology (IR) procedures and endovascular interventions. Compared with patients with normal renal function, nephropathic patients have an increased risk of acute kidney injury (AKI). Nevertheless, this condition cannot represent a limit to diagnostics or endovascular interventions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMonkeypox, caused by the mpox virus, is an emerging infectious eruptive disease, endemic in some African countries, that spread rapidly worldwide from May to December 2022. This new epidemic differs from the previous African ones by its mode of transmission, essentially through intimate contact and/or sexual intercourse, and by the fact that in more than 90 % of cases it affects men who have sex with men. Severe forms of the disease, responsible for significant mortality, have been described in immunosuppressed patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA healthy young man first diagnosed with mpox in May 2022 presented again in November 2022 with anal proctitis and a positive polymerase chain reaction on a rectal swab for Monkeypox virus after a recent trip to Brazil, where he engaged in condomless sexual intercourse with multiple male partners.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF() gene, located in the short arm of chromosome 11, encodes for BHC80, a component of the Lysine Specific Demethylase 1, Corepressor of REST (LSD1-CoREST) complex. BHC80 is mainly expressed in the human fetal brain and skeletal muscle and acts as a modulator of several neuronal genes during embryogenesis. Data from literature relates variants with Potocki-Shaffer Syndrome (PSS), a contiguous gene deletion disorder caused by the haploinsufficiency of , , and genes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRecessive mutations in the POLR3A gene cause POLR3-HLD (the second-most-common form of childhood-onset hypomyelinating leukodystrophy), a neurodegenerative disorder featuring deficient cerebral myelin formation. To date, more than 140 POLR3A (NM_007055.3) missense mutations are related to the pathogenesis of POLR3-related leukodystrophy and spastic ataxia.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAntipsychotics (APDs) represent the main pharmacological strategy in the treatment of schizophrenia; however, their administration often may result in severe adverse effects, such as extrapyramidal symptoms. Typically, dystonic movements are considered the result of impaired function and/or abnormalities of dopaminergic neurotransmission/signaling in the basal ganglia. The catechol O-methyltransferase (COMT) gene is located within the 22q11.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCongenital disorders of glycosylation (CDG) are a group of rare genetic diseases caused by the deficiency of enzymes involved in the biosynthesis or remodeling of the glycan moieties of glycoconjugates. Most of CDG are autosomal recessive; however, few of them show autosomal dominant or X-linked inheritance. ALG12-CDG is an autosomal recessive inherited defect caused by a deficiency in the α-mannosyltransferase, dolichyl-P-mannose: Man7-GlcNAc-2-PP-dolichyl-alpha-6-mannosyltransferase (mannosyltransferase 8), which determines Man7GlcNAc2-PP-dolichol accumulation in tissues including fibroblasts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA healthy young man from Sri Lanka, currently living in Switzerland, consulted at the University Hospital of Geneva with a history of painful erythema and swelling of the left forearm. Laboratory tests showed a slight eosinophilia. Western blot serology for Gnathostoma spp, inconclusive at presentation, became positive 2 weeks later.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The so-called 'mycobiome' has progressively acquired interest and increased the complexity of our understanding of the human gut microbiota. Several questions are arising concerning the role of fungi (and in particular of Candida albicans), the so-called 'mycobiome', that has been neglected for a long time and only recently gained interest within the scientific community. There is no consensus on mycobiome normobiosis because of its instability and variability.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe public emergency caused by Covid-19 has forced health services to reorganize in order to separate positive patients from negative ones. In nephrology, this reorganization involves several levels of assistance concerning hospitalizations, ambulatory care and haemodialysis. Within the Complex Unit of Nephrology in Ragusa, the distribution of nephro-dialytic resources has involved four different hospitals, hence ensuring haemodialysis services for asymptomatic and pauci-symptomatic Covid-19 patients as well as for patients in Covid-Unit, Sub-Intensive Therapy and Intensive Care Unit.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFragile X syndrome (FXS) is a common form of intellectual disability and autism caused by the lack of Fragile X Mental Retardation Protein (FMRP), an RNA-binding protein involved in RNA transport and protein synthesis. Upon cellular stress, global protein synthesis is blocked and mRNAs are recruited into stress granules (SGs), together with RNA-binding proteins including FMRP. Activation of group-I metabotropic glutamate (mGlu) receptors stimulates FMRP-mediated mRNA transport and protein synthesis, but their role in SGs formation is unexplored.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Musculoskelet Neuronal Interact
December 2020
Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) refers to a group of genetic neuromuscular disorders affecting lower motor neurons causative of numerous phenotypes. To date, according to the age of onset, maximum muscular activity achieved, and life expectation four types of SMA are recognized, all caused by mutations in the SMN1 gene with SMN2 copy number influencing disease severity. Herein, we describe the case of a 31-year-old young male with normal psychomotor development who has experienced fatigue, cramps, and muscle fasciculations in the lower limbs for a period of 2 months.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNiemann-Pick disease type C (NPC) is a progressive lysosomal storage disorder caused by mutations in the (in 95% of cases) or (in ~5% of cases) genes, inherited in an autosomal recessive manner. We report the case of a 38-year-old woman with learning disorder from her first year of schooling, and could notice slow progressed cognitive impairment, social withdrawal, apathy, handwriting alterations, deterioration of language skills and dysphagia. Brain magnetic resonance imaging showed severe cerebellar atrophy, hypoplasia of the corpus callosum, asymmetric lateral ventricular enlargement, and severe enlargement of frontal and parietal subarachnoid spaces.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOsteoporosis affects a segment of the population in which Chronic Kidney Disease is also greatly represented. Nephropathic patients may present peculiar biochemical abnormalities related to Chronic Kidney Disease, defining the Mineral and Bone Disorder. This kind of anomalies, in the worst scenarios, configure the typical histomorphology patterns of Renal Osteodystrophy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTo date, the phenotypic significance of EEG abnormalities in patients with ASD is unclear. In a population affected by ASD we aimed to evaluate: the phenotypic characteristics; the prevalence of EEG abnormalities; the potential correlations between EEG abnormalities and behavioral and cognitive variables. Sixty-nine patients with ASD underwent cognitive or developmental testing, language assessment, and adaptive behavior skills evaluation as well as sleep/wake EEG recording.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPeriventricular nodular heterotopia (PNH) is a brain malformation in which nodules of neurons are ectopically retained along the lateral ventricles. Genetic causes include FLNA abnormalities (classical X-linked PNH), rare variants in ARFGEF2, DCHS1, ERMARD, FAT4, INTS8, MAP1B, MCPH1, and NEDD4L, as well as several chromosomal abnormalities. We performed array-CGH in 106 patients with different malformations of cortical development (MCD) and looked for common pathways possibly involved in PNH.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImportance: Heated, humidified high-flow nasal cannula (HHHFNC) has gained increasing popularity as respiratory support for newborn infants thanks to ease of use and improved patient comfort. However, its role as primary therapy for respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) of prematurity needs to be further elucidated by large, randomized clinical trials.
Objective: To determine whether HHHFNC provides respiratory support noninferior to nasal continuous positive airway pressure (nCPAP) or bilevel nCPAP (BiPAP) as a primary approach to RDS in infants older than 28 weeks' gestational age (GA).