Comprehensive Evaluation of Plasma 7-Ketocholesterol and Cholestan-3β,5α,6β-Triol in an Italian Cohort of Patients Affected by Niemann-Pick Disease due to NPC1 and SMPD1 Mutations.

Niemann-Pick C disease (NPCD) is a rare autosomal recessive neurovisceral disorder with a heterogeneous clinical presentation. Cholestan-3β,5α,6β-triol and 7-ketocholesterol have been proposed as biomarkers for the screening of NPCD. In this work, we assessed oxysterols levels in a cohort of Italian patients affected by NPCD and analyzed the obtained results in the context of the clinical, biochemical and molecular data.

Ischemia-modified albumin in pregnancy.

Objective: In normal pregnancies, a hypoxic intrauterine environment seems necessary for early trophoblast development. In this context, maternal serum levels of ischemia-modified albumin (IMA) are elevated, reflecting the oxidative stress associated with placental development. The aim of this study was to evaluate IMA and pregnancy-associated plasma protein A (PAPP-A) in mothers bearing small-for-gestational-age (SGA) fetuses compared to normal pregnancies.

Vitamin A deficiency is associated with hepatitis C virus chronic infection and with unresponsiveness to interferon-based antiviral therapy.

Unlabelled: Recent data suggest that vitamin A modulates the expression of type I interferon receptor enhancing the antireplication effect of interferon-α on hepatitis C virus (HCV). This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency among patients with chronic HCV infection and to assess whether vitamin A deficiency could be associated with unresponsiveness to interferon-based antiviral therapy. The analysis included 199 consecutive treatment-naïve chronic HCV patients in whom pretreatment serum vitamin A and 25-OH vitamin D were measured; 119 healthy blood donors were used as controls.

Evaluation of donor hepatic iron concentration as a factor of early fibrotic progression after liver transplantation.

Background/aims: Hepatic iron may act as an important co-morbid factor in non-hemochromatotic liver diseases, but whether it may favour fibrogenesis after liver transplantation is not known. To verify whether the hepatic iron concentration of the graft might play a role in the rapid fibrotic progression frequently observed after liver transplantation for chronic hepatitis C.

Methods: The hepatic iron concentration, measured at the time of the donor operation, was retrospectively related to the histological follow-up data of 68 recipients (49 males, 19 females), of whom 38 were hepatitis C virus positive.