Publications by authors named "Roberta Carfora"
Article Synopsis
- Treating infantile-onset inflammatory bowel disease (IO-IBD) can be difficult because standard treatments often fail, necessitating the use of biologics like anti-tumor necrosis factor therapy.
- A case study of a 5-month-old boy with IO-IBD showed that therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) for high-dose adalimumab (ADA) helped manage the disease, especially after the patient developed antibodies against the drug.
- The successful adjustment in dosing led to the disappearance of these antibodies and sustained remission, suggesting that TDM-guided high-dose therapy could be a viable alternative to combination treatments, particularly for very young patients.
In the last half century, the life expectancy of beta-thalassemia patients has strikingly increased mostly due to regular blood transfusions and chelation treatments. The improved survival, however, has allowed for the emergence of comorbidities, such as hearing loss, with a non-negligible impact on the patients' quality of life. This thorough review analyzes the acquired knowledge regarding hearing impairment in this hereditary hemoglobinopathy, aiming at defining its prevalence, features, course, and possible disease- or treatment-related pathogenic factors.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Sensorineural hearing loss in beta-thalassemia is common and it is generally associated with iron chelation therapy. However, data are scarce, especially on adult populations, and a possible involvement of the central auditory areas has not been investigated yet. We performed a multicenter cross-sectional audiological and single-center 3Tesla brain perfusion MRI study enrolling 77 transfusion-dependent/non transfusion-dependent adult patients and 56 healthy controls.
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