Publications by authors named "Piera Costanzo"
Article Synopsis
- The study investigates changing trends in infective endocarditis (IE) in Italy, highlighting an increase in cases among older patients with health issues and medical devices.
- Data was collected from 17 centers, enrolling 677 patients, primarily male with a median age of 62; common causes included Staphylococcus aureus and enterococci.
- The research indicates a shift towards atypical symptom presentation and a notable 14% in-hospital mortality rate, emphasizing the need for updated clinical approaches to manage IE.
Article Synopsis
- The study compares the effectiveness of transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) and transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) in diagnosing infective endocarditis (IE) based on data from the Italian Registry on IE (RIEI).
- TTE was performed more frequently and earlier than TEE, leading to initial diagnoses in 59% of cases, while TEE showed higher diagnostic sensitivity with positive results in 95% of cases compared to TTE's 65%.
- TEE plays a crucial role in changing treatment plans in 42% of cases, although it is less commonly used in practice despite its greater accuracy.
Background: Proteasomes are 'proteolytic machineries' implicated in many cellular functions, including protein turnover, inflammatory response and immunosurveillance. They exist in various forms sharing the same catalytic core - the 20S proteasome. This core consists of 28 subunits codified by 14 different genes, 3 of which - beta 1, beta 2 and beta 5 - are catalytically active and show peptidyl-glutamyl peptide hydrolyzing (PGPH), trypsin-like and chymo-trypsin-like activities, respectively.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Type II mixed cryoglobulinaemia (MC) is a systemic vasculitis, associated in most cases with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, and sustained by proliferation of oligoclonal cells. Systemic B-cell depletion and clinical remission can be achieved in non-Hodgkin lymphoma by a human/mouse chimeric monoclonal antibody that specifically reacts with the CD20 antigen (Rituximab). Similar effects could be expected in type II MC.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBACKGROUND: Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is an important limiting factor of exercise tolerance in patients with mitral stenosis (MS). We wished to investigate the relationship between respiratory nitric oxide (NO), a potent vasodilator, and exercise tolerance in patients with moderate MS. In the same patients, we wondered whether acute change in pulmonary hemodynamics could affect respiratory NO.
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