Publications by authors named "Pengo M"

Article Synopsis
  • - The study examined how effective and safe nifedipine GITS and ramipril are for treating hypertension in Chinese versus European patients through a post-hoc analysis of a multinational trial.
  • - The research found that while both medications reduced blood pressure similarly across ethnic groups, ethnic differences impacted age, body mass index, and certain blood pressure measurements, and the response to treatment varied between the two groups.
  • - The safety profiles noted significant differences, with fewer adverse events in Chinese patients taking nifedipine, while Europeans experienced more ankle edema with nifedipine and dry cough with ramipril.
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Respiratory diseases exhibit diverse patterns in prevalence, clinical presentations, and outcomes between men and women. Historically, certain conditions were more prevalent in men, but trends have shifted, highlighting the need to understand sex disparities in respiratory health. Social, environmental, and healthcare changes have reshaped the landscape of respiratory diseases, complicating diagnosis and treatment.

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Article Synopsis
  • Patients with hypertension who engage with mobile health technologies show lower blood pressure and better understanding of their condition.
  • This study evaluated the reliability and validity of the TWEETS scale specifically for Italian patients with hypertension for the first time.
  • Results indicated that TWEETS is effective and reliable for measuring patient engagement with mHealth devices, but more research is needed across different populations to confirm its applicability.
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Background: Obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) is associated with hypertension, and OSA treatment can reduce systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP), but with a modest mean effect size and vast heterogeneity among studies. The aim of this individual patient data (IPD) meta-analysis was to understand which OSA phenotypes could benefit the most in terms of BP reduction.

Methods: A systematic review of randomised controlled trials that compared continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) with either passive or active treatment was conducted.

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Article Synopsis
  • Randomized clinical trials do not currently support using continuous positive airway pressure for treating asymptomatic obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), especially in low-risk patients.
  • The OSCAR algorithm was proposed to help doctors manage asymptomatic moderate-severe OSA by focusing on weight loss, symptoms, and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk.
  • Research found no significant difference in the risk of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) between patients with moderate-severe OSA and those without OSA, indicating that more studies are needed on this topic.
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Article Synopsis
  • Sleep is essential for health, yet the impact of non-respiratory sleep disorders on cardiovascular health is often overlooked.* -
  • Evidence indicates that factors like sleep duration, circadian rhythm, insomnia, and hypersomnolence disorders significantly affect cardiovascular health, while sleep-related movement disorders show a moderate link.* -
  • It's important to identify and manage sleep disorders in individuals at high risk for cardiovascular issues to improve overall health outcomes.*
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Article Synopsis
  • Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and hypertension significantly increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality, and studies show they are interconnected.* -
  • This review examines how OSA impacts blood pressure, including its effects on nocturnal blood pressure, response to CPAP treatment, and its contribution to blood pressure variability and cardiac remodeling.* -
  • The article also highlights the influence of ethnicity and social determinants on OSA, emphasizing disparities in blood pressure control and cardiovascular health within Asian populations.*
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The glymphatic system is an emerging target in neurodegenerative disorders. Here, we investigated the activity of the glymphatic system in genetic frontotemporal dementia with a diffusion-based technique called diffusion tensor image analysis along the perivascular space. We investigated 291 subjects with symptomatic or presymptomatic frontotemporal dementia (112 with [] expansion, 119 with [] mutations and 60 with [] mutations) and 83 non-carriers (including 50 young and 33 old non-carriers).

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Huntington disease (HD) is a dominantly inherited neurodegenerative disorder caused by a CAG expansion on the huntingtin () gene and is characterized by progressive motor, cognitive, and neuropsychiatric decline. Recently, new genetic factors besides CAG repeats have been implicated in the disease pathogenesis. Most genetic modifiers are involved in DNA repair pathways and, as the cause of the loss of CAA interruption in the gene, they exert their main influence through somatic expansion.

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  • The study investigates how different methods of measuring blood pressure variability (OBP, HBP, and ABP) are related and agree with each other, particularly before and after starting treatment for high blood pressure.
  • Participants included untreated hypertensive individuals who were given either ramipril or nifedipine GITS for 10 weeks, with their blood pressure variability assessed using standard deviation and coefficient of variation.
  • Results showed only weak-to-moderate correlations between home and ambulatory BP measurements, indicating that while they can identify individuals with high blood pressure variability, they do not align well with office measurements.
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Introduction: The goal of the present work was to assess the incidence of dementia with onset before the age of 65 years (i.e., young-onset dementia [YOD]) and define the frequencies of young-onset Alzheimer's disease (AD), frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD), and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) in the general population.

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  • * Researchers developed and tested a brief Italian version of the Perception of Risk of Heart Disease Scale (PRHDS) on a sample of 772 healthy adults.
  • * The findings show that the scale has good psychometric properties, suggesting it can effectively gauge cardiovascular risk perception among Italian adults.
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The relative contribution of small (sEVs) and large extracellular vesicles (lEVs) to the total plasma procoagulant potential is not yet well defined. Thus, we compared total and TF-sEVs and -lEVs isolated from healthy subjects and COVID-19 patients during the acute phase of the infection and after symptom remission in terms of (1) vesicle enumeration using nanoparticle tracking assay, imaging flow cytometry, and TF immunofluorescence localization in a single-vesicle analysis using microarrays; (2) cellular origin; and (3) TF-dependent Xa generation capacity, as well as assessing the contribution of the TF inhibitor, TFPI. In healthy subjects, the plasma concentration of CD9/CD63/CD81 sEVs was 30 times greater than that of calcein lEVs, and both were mainly released by platelets.

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Background: Air pollution and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) are both linked with cardiovascular co-morbidities and share similar pathophysiological mechanisms. A causal association between the two has been postulated. However, the results of the studies on this topic are conflicting mainly because of the lack of adjustment for important confounders such as seasonality and temperature.

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Background: Hypoglossal nerve stimulation (HNS) for obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) is a novel way to manage the condition. We hypothesised that in patients with OSA and limited adherence to continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy, domiciliary transcutaneous electrical stimulation (TESLA) would control sleep apnoea and provide health benefits.

Methods: We undertook a single-centre, open-label, randomised, controlled phase III trial in patients with OSA (apnoea-hypopnoea-index [AHI] 5-35 h), a BMI of 18.

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High blood pressure is the leading cause of death and disability globally and an important treatable risk factor for cardiovascular, cerebrovascular and chronic kidney diseases. Digital technology, including mobile health solutions and digital therapy, is expanding rapidly in clinical medicine and has the potential to improve the quality of care and effectiveness of drug treatment by making medical interventions timely, tailored to hypertensive patients' needs and by improving treatment adherence. Thus, the systematic application of digital technologies could support diagnosis and awareness of hypertension and its complications, ultimately leading to improved BP control at the population level.

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Background: Optic pathway is considered an ideal model to study the interaction between inflammation and neurodegeneration in multiple sclerosis (MS).

Methods: Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) and 3.0 T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) were acquired in 92 relapsing remitting (RR) MS at clinical onset.

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Introduction: Prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD) is of key importance in reducing morbidity, disability and mortality worldwide. Observational studies suggest that digital health interventions can be an effective strategy to reduce cardiovascular (CV) risk. However, evidence from large randomised clinical trials is lacking.

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Article Synopsis
  • * A meta-analysis of 31 randomized controlled trials found that CPAP slightly improves insulin sensitivity and reduces total cholesterol levels, with greater benefits observed in pre-diabetic/type 2 diabetic patients and those with more severe OSA.
  • * Overall, while CPAP may offer some metabolic benefits, its effects are generally modest and may be more pronounced in specific subgroups of OSA patients.
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Introduction: Variable D-dimer trends during hospitalization reportedly result in distinct in-hospital mortality. In this multinational case series from the first and second waves, we show the universality of such D-dimer trends.

Methods: We reviewed 405 patients with COVID-19 during the first wave admitted to three institutions in the United States, Italy, and Colombia, and 111 patients admitted to the U.

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