Risk factors for shunting at 12 months following open fetal repair of spina bifida by mini-hysterotomy.

Objectives: Open spina bifida (OSB) is the most common neural tube defect. Prenatal repair reduces the need for ventriculoperitoneal shunting (VPS) due to hydrocephalus from 80-90% to 40-50%. We aimed to determine which variables work as risk factors for VPS at 12 months of age in our population.

Fetal open spinal dysraphism repair through a mini-hysterotomy: Influence of gestational age at surgery on children's ability to walk.

Objective: To analyze the impact of gestational age (GA) at the time of fetal open spinal dysraphism (OSD) repair through a mini-hysterotomy on the ability of children to walk.

Methods: Children who underwent in utero repair of OSD and had formal neurological assessment after 2.5 years of age were compared regarding their ability to walk in relation to pre-surgical predictors.

Open fetal myelomeningocele repair at a university hospital: surgery and pregnancy outcomes.

Purpose: Myelomeningocele (MMC) is an open neural tube defect that causes great morbidity. Prenatal open repair is the standard treatment; however, there are many complications related to the procedure. This study reports preliminary findings of open in utero repair of MMC in a public tertiary hospital in Brazil and describes factors that could be associated with increased surgical morbidity.

Fetal open spinal dysraphism repair through a mini-hysterotomy: Influence of gestational age at surgery on the perinatal outcomes and postnatal shunt rates.

Objective: To analyze the impact of gestational age (GA) at the time of fetal open spinal dysraphism (OSD) repair through a mini-hysterotomy on the perinatal outcomes and the infants' ventriculoperitoneal shunt rates.

Methods: Retrospective study of cases of fetal OSD correction performed from 2014 and 2019.

Results: One hundred and ninety women underwent fetal surgery for OSD through a mini-hysterotomy, and 176 (176/190:92.

Incidence of postoperative dyspepsia is not associated with prophylactic use of drugs.

Context And Objective: Preoperative fasting guidelines do not recommend H2 receptor antagonists or proton pump inhibitors. This study investigated prophylactic use of gastric protection and the incidence of dyspeptic symptoms in the immediate postoperative period.

Design And Setting: Non-randomized observational investigation in a post-anesthesia care unit.

Tyrosine phosphorylation of GABAA receptor γ2-subunit regulates tonic and phasic inhibition in the thalamus.

GABA-mediated tonic and phasic inhibition of thalamic relay neurons of the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (dLGN) was studied after ablating tyrosine (Y) phosphorylation of receptor γ2-subunits. As phosphorylation of γ2 Y365 and Y367 reduces receptor internalization, to understand their importance for inhibition we created a knock-in mouse in which these residues are replaced by phenylalanines. On comparing wild-type (WT) and γ2(Y365/367F)+/- (HT) animals (homozygotes are not viable in utero), the expression levels of GABAA receptor α4-subunits were increased in the thalamus of female, but not male mice.

Postnatal developmental profile of neurons and glia in motor nuclei of the brainstem and spinal cord, and its comparison with organotypic slice cultures.

In vitro preparations of the neonatal rat spinal cord or brainstem are useful to investigate the organization of motor networks and their dysfunction in neurological disease models. Long-term spinal cord organotypic cultures can extend our understanding of such pathophysiological processes over longer times. It is, however, surprising that detailed descriptions of the type (and number) of neurons and glia in such preparations are currently unavailable to evaluate cell-selectivity of experimental damage.

Respiratory motoneurons and pathological conditions: lessons from hypoglossal motoneurons challenged by excitotoxic or oxidative stress.

Hypoglossal motoneurons (HMs) are respiration-related brainstem neurons that command rhythmic contraction of the tongue muscles in concert with the respiratory drive. In experimental conditions, HMs can exhibit a range of rhythmic patterns that may subserve different motor outputs and functions. Neurodegenerative diseases like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS; Lou-Gehrig disease) often damage HMs with distressing symptoms like dysarthria, dysphagia and breathing difficulty related to degeneration of respiratory motoneurons.

Correlation between the body mass index (BMI) of pregnant women and the development of hypotension after spinal anesthesia for cesarean section.

Background And Objectives: Very few publications correlate hypotension in obese pregnant women, and especially morbidly obese, after spinal anesthesia for cesarean section. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the incidence of hypotension according to the BMI.

Methods: Forty-nine patients with pregestational BMI below 25 kg.

Riluzole is a potent drug to protect neonatal rat hypoglossal motoneurons in vitro from excitotoxicity due to glutamate uptake block.

Excitotoxic damage to motoneurons is thought to be an important contribution to the pathogenesis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a slowly developing degeneration of motoneurons that, in most cases of sporadic occurrence, is associated with impaired glial glutamate uptake. Riluzole is the only drug licensed for symptomatic ALS treatment and is proposed to delay disease progression. As riluzole is administered only after full ALS manifestation, it is unclear if its early use might actually prevent motoneuron damage.

Transient oxidative stress evokes early changes in the functional properties of neonatal rat hypoglossal motoneurons in vitro.

Oxidative stress of motoneurons is believed to be an important contributor to neurodegeneration underlying the familial (and perhaps even the sporadic) form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). This concept has generated numerous rodent genetic models with inborn oxidative stress to mimic the clinical condition. ALS is, however, a predominantly sporadic disorder probably triggered by environmental causes.

A repertoire of rhythmic bursting produced by hypoglossal motoneurons in physiological and pathological conditions.

The brainstem nucleus hypoglossus contains motoneurons that provide the exclusive motor nerve supply to the tongue. In addition to voluntary tongue movements, tongue muscles rhythmically contract during a wide range of physiological activities, such as respiration, swallowing, chewing and sucking. Hypoglossal motoneurons are destroyed early in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a fatal neurodegenerative disease often associated with a deficit in the transport system of the neurotransmitter glutamate.

Thyroid cancer: possible role of telemedicine.

Telemedicine is extremely useful when distance could hinder diagnostic procedures, disease management, or when severe side-effects may occur in patients not within easy reach of medical care and requiring prompt action and specific therapies. Telemedicine has been successfully adopted in the management of chronic patients, particularly in those with cardiologic or oncologic diseases. In the treatment of differentiated thyroid cancer, requiring long-term check-ups and visits as well as administration of high doses of levothyroxine (TSH - thyroid-stimulating hormone - suppression), also in elderly patients, telemedicine seems particularly indicated.

A mathematical model of cancer treatment by immunotherapy.

In this paper, a detailed mathematical study of cancer immunotherapy will be presented. General principles of cancer immunotherapy and the model equations and hypotheses will be discussed. Mathematical analyses of the model equations with regard to dissipativity, boundedness of solutions, invariance of non-negativity, nature of equilibria, persistence, extinction and global stability will be analyzed.

Oxygen consumption.

It gets more and more frequent to use oxygen consumption (VO2) to evaluate exercise capacity and response to treatment in heart failure patients. The amount of VO2 is due to ventilation, oxygen transport and muscle activity. No one of these single steps can define by itself VO2, but all these physiological functions are integrated each other.

Modelling and simulation of chemotherapy of haematological and gynaecological cancers.

In this paper elaborate mathematical models and investigative computer simulations for the chemotherapy of haematological and gynaecological cancers are presented. The pharmacodynamics of the actions of the antineoplastic drugs are described by multicompartmental models with the associated model equations taking into account the drug dosage, type of delivery, route of delivery, the intercompartmental drug-transition constants, degradation parameters, and leakage coefficients. The cell-cycle phase-specific six-compartmental cytokinetic tumour growth model presented here incorporates the cell-cycle phase residence time, time lags associated with drug-induced cell-kill, or progression delays due to repair of cell damage.

Modelling and simulation of Rosenberg-type adoptive cellular immunotherapy.

A mathematical model is developed to describe the process of adoptive cellular immunotherapy (ACI) using the scheme of Rosenberg and other investigators. The model exhibits the dynamics of tumour cells as well as the time evolution of the tumoricidal immunocytes, such as ex vivo interleukin-2 (IL-2) expanded natural killer (NK) cells, lymphokine activated killer (LAK) cells, tumour derived activated cells (TDAC), and interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) activated killer monocytes (AKM). The model is described mathematically by a system of nonlinear functional-differential equations.