Publications by authors named "Pollina L"

Extra robotic arms (XRAs) are gaining interest in neuroscience and robotics, offering potential tools for daily activities. However, this compelling opportunity poses new challenges for sensorimotor control strategies and human-machine interfaces (HMIs). A key unsolved challenge is allowing users to proficiently control XRAs without hindering their existing functions.

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Neuroprosthetic devices used for the treatment of lower urinary tract dysfunction, such as incontinence or urinary retention, apply a pre-set continuous, open-loop stimulation paradigm, which can cause voiding dysfunctions due to neural adaptation. In the literature, conditional, closed-loop stimulation paradigms have been shown to increase bladder capacity and voiding efficacy compared to continuous stimulation. Current limitations to the implementation of the closed-loop stimulation paradigm include the lack of robust and real-time decoding strategies for the bladder fullness state.

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Introduction: There is limited data available regarding the role of surgery in the treatment of retroperitoneal sarcoma (RPS) recurrences. We herein report the short- and mid-term outcomes of patients who underwent surgical treatment of RPS recurrences at two Italian centers over a 15-years' experience.

Materials And Methods: From January 2005 to January 2020, 33 patients underwent surgical treatment of isolated locally recurrent RPS (LR group), locally recurrent RPS associated with the presence of distant recurrence (LR + DM group), and distant-only recurrent RPS (DM group).

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Bioelectronic medicine is a new approach for developing closed-loop neuromodulation protocols on the peripheral nervous system (PNS) to treat a wide range of disorders currently treated with pharmacological approaches. Algorithms need to have low computational cost in order to acquire, process and model data for the modulation of the PNS in real time. Here, we present a fast learning-based decoding algorithm for the classification of cardiovascular and respiratory functional alterations (i.

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Bioelectronic medicine is an emerging field that aims at developing closed-loop neuromodulation protocols for the autonomic nervous system (ANS) to treat a wide range of disorders. When designing a closed-loop protocol for real time modulation of the ANS, the computational execution time and the memory and power demands of the decoding step are important factors to consider. In the context of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, these requirements may partially explain why closed-loop clinical neuromodulation protocols that adapt stimulation parameters on patient's clinical characteristics are currently missing.

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The use of zebrafish embryos for personalized medicine has become increasingly popular. We present a co-clinical trial aiming to evaluate the use of zPDX (zebrafish Patient-Derived Xenografts) in predicting the response to chemotherapy regimens used for colorectal cancer patients. zPDXs are generated by xenografting tumor tissues in two days post-fertilization zebrafish embryos.

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Background: Conventional Right Colectomy with D2 lymphadenectomy (RC-D2) currently represent the most common surgical treatment of right-sided colon cancer (RCC). However, whether it should be still considered a standard of care, or replaced by a routine more extended D3 lymphadenectomy remains unclear. In the present study, we aim to critically review the patterns of relapse and the survival outcomes obtained from our 11-year experience of RC-D2.

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α-Synuclein (α-syn) is a protein involved in neuronal degeneration. However, the family of synucleins has recently been demonstrated to be involved in the mechanisms of oncogenesis by selectively accelerating cellular processes leading to cancer. Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the most lethal human cancers, with a specifically high neurotropism.

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Article Synopsis
  • Researchers found that a protein called PrPc might help explain why pancreatic tumors are aggressive.
  • They studied this protein in 45 patients with suspected pancreatic cancer to see if its levels were linked to how well patients did after surgery.
  • They used special techniques to check how much PrPc was in the cancer cells and learned more about the disease's behavior and patient outcomes.
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  • Robot-assisted pancreatoduodenectomy (RPD) has advantages over open pancreatoduodenectomy (OPD), but a cost analysis comparing the two methods has been lacking.
  • A study compared 20 RPD procedures and 40 OPD procedures, highlighting differences in cost-related factors like hospital stay duration and consumable costs.
  • Findings show RPD has higher upfront material costs but significantly reduces hospital stay duration, leading to overall comparable variable costs between the two surgical techniques.
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It is increasingly evident the necessity of new predictive tools for the treatment of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma in a personalized manner. We present a co-clinical trial testing the predictiveness of zPDX (zebrafish patient-derived xenograft) for assessing if patients could benefit from a therapeutic strategy (ClinicalTrials.gov: XenoZ, NCT03668418).

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Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is among the most lethal cancers. Its poor prognosis is predominantly due to the fact that most patients remain asymptomatic until the disease reaches an advanced stage, alongside the lack of early markers and screening strategies. A better understanding of PDAC risk factors is essential for the identification of groups at high risk in the population.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates the outcomes of conservative surgery (CS) versus total pancreatectomy (TP) for treating intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms (IPMNs), a type of pancreatic tumor, through a retrospective analysis of patient data from 2007 to 2019.
  • A total of 126 patients were analyzed: 53 underwent TP and 73 underwent CS, with both groups showing similar postoperative complications and no significant differences in overall survival (OS) or disease-free survival (DFS).
  • The findings suggest that conservative surgery may be a viable option for most patients with IPMNs, potentially reducing the risk of severe complications associated with more extensive surgical procedures.
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Background: Few studies have reported a structured cost analysis of robotic distal pancreatectomy (RDP), and none have compared the relative costs between the robotic-assisted surgery (RAS) and the direct manual laparoscopy (DML) in this setting. The aim of the present study is to address this issue by comparing surgical outcomes and costs of RDP and laparoscopic distal pancreatectomies (LDP).

Methods: Eighty-eight RDP and 47 LDP performed between January 2008 and January 2020 were retrospectively analyzed.

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COGERIA, a cantonal program is the fruit of a close collaboration between the Geneva General Directorate of Health and the major health and social partners in the canton. The program aims to improve inter-professional care for the frail elderly and to adapt their care pathways in close collaboration with their primary care physicians and home healthcare providers. Launched in May 2019, the program includes more than 283 beneficiaries and 152 primary care physicians in collaboration with the home healthcare providers in the Servette and Meyrin areas.

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Background: Ampullary adenocarcinomas (AACs) are heterogeneous tumors currently classified into three important sub-classes (SC): Intestinal (INT), Pancreato-Biliary (PB) and Mixed-Type (MT). The different subgroups have similar clinical presentation and are treated by pancreatoduodenectomy with curative intent. However, they respond differently to chemotherapy and have different prognostic outcomes.

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Introduction: With the increasing reliance on targeted therapies and immunotherapy, no standard management strategy is today available for the treatment of locally, distant, or both renal cell carcinoma (RCC) recurrences, and their surgical treatment seems to play a crucial role. We report the 20-year experience of our center evaluating the short- and long-term outcomes of patients undergone surgical resection of RCC recurrences, and the possible role of repeated surgical resections of RCC recurrences.

Materials And Methods: From January 1999 to January 2019, 40 patients underwent surgical resection of isolated locally recurrent RCC (iLR-RCC-group), locally recurrent RCC associated with the presence of distant recurrence (LR-DR-RCC-group), and distant-only recurrent RCC (DR-RCC-group).

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Background: Among the several new targets for the comprehension of the biology of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), Prion proteins (PrPc) deserve particular mention, since they share a marked neurotropism. Actually, PrPc could have also a role in tumorigenesis, as recently demonstrated. However, only few in vitro studies in cell cultures showed the occurrence of PrPc in PDAC cells.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study focuses on improving chemotherapy prediction for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) patients through personalized medicine by developing a zebrafish embryo model as a patient avatar.
  • Tumor tissue from surgical patients is transplanted into zebrafish embryos, allowing researchers to test chemotherapy responses in a live environment.
  • The effectiveness of various chemotherapy treatments is monitored by measuring changes in the fluorescent area of the transplanted tumor tissue over time, providing insight into potential treatment outcomes for individual patients.
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Animal "avatars" and co-clinical trials are being developed for possible use in personalized medicine in oncology. In a co-clinical trial, the cancer cells of the patient's tumor are xenotransplanted into the animal avatar for drug efficacy studies, and the data collected in the animal trial are used to plan the best drug treatment in the patient trial. Zebrafish have recently been proposed for implementing avatar models, however the lack of a general criterion for the chemotherapy dose conversion from humans to fish is a limitation in terms of conducting co-clinical trials.

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Squamous cell carcinoma of the vulva represents 3-5% of gynecological cancers. The incidence is higher in postmenopausal patients; the mean age of women with vulvar cancer is between 64 and 70 years. Radiotherapy plays an increasing role in the treatment of high-risk squamous cell carcinoma of the vulva; associated with surgery it significantly improves prognosis but is also associated with serious late side-effects, such as secondary malignancies.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study analyzes outcomes of pancreatic resections for metastases over a 20-year period, focusing on patients with renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and other types of tumors.
  • Results show that patients with RCC had significantly longer disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) compared to those with non-RCC tumors, indicating that surgery may be more beneficial for RCC patients.
  • The findings suggest that radical surgery for RCC metastases could offer a survival advantage, whereas for non-RCC metastases, surgical intervention should be more selective and cautious.
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An extremely rare renal hybrid tumor composed of papillary renal cell carcinoma (PRCC) and renal oncocytoma (RO) within the same tumor is described. Only eight previous cases are documented in the literature. A 44-year-old man showed a 3.

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Background: Although minimally invasive surgery (MIS) of the liver is increasingly widespread, its role in the treatment of colorectal liver metastasis (CRLM) remains uncertain. In this setting, the role of robotic-assisted surgery (RAS) has not been significantly evaluated yet. The aim of this study was to report our experience with RAS for treatment of CRLM.

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