Publications by authors named "Valli M"

Purpose: Breast cancer (BC) is the most prevalent cancer in women and radiotherapy (RT) is an integral part of its treatment. High-level evidence guides clinical decisions, but given the abundance of guidelines, a need to navigate within the evidence has been identified by the board of the Scientific Association of Swiss Radiation Oncology (SASRO). A pilot project was initiated aiming to create an overview of recent clinically relevant evidence for BC RT, to make it easily available to (radiation) oncologists and radiation oncologists in training.

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Natural product (NP) databases are crucial tools in computer-aided drug design (CADD). Over the past decade, there has been a worldwide effort to assemble information regarding natural products (NPs) isolated and characterized in certain geographical regions. In 2023, it was published LANaPDB, and to our knowledge, this is the first attempt to gather and standardize all the NP databases of Latin America.

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Unlabelled: The EORTC 22922/10925 trial aimed to investigate the impact on overall survival (OS) of elective internal mammary and medial supraclavicular (IM-MS) radiation therapy (RT) in breast cancer stage I-III. Surgery for the primary tumour and axillary lymph nodes, chest wall RT, boost RT after whole breast RT in breast conserving therapy (BCT), RT to operated axilla, and systemic therapy were per physician's preference. The aim of the current analysis is to assess breast cancer outcomes according to different locoregional and systemic therapy used in the trial.

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The development of new treatments for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) remains a major challenge in the 21st century. In most cases, the available drugs are obsolete and have limitations in terms of efficacy and safety. The situation becomes even more complex when considering the low number of new chemical entities (NCEs) currently in use in advanced clinical trials for most of these diseases.

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Article Synopsis
  • Enteroviruses (EVs) are common worldwide pathogens, primarily impacting children and causing a range of illnesses, including aseptic meningitis, but their true prevalence and epidemiology remain poorly understood.
  • Research focused on the Lazio region over a decade revealed changes in EV infection trends, particularly influenced by the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, with a return to pre-pandemic circulation patterns by 2022 but with shifts in dominant strains identified.
  • Ongoing studies are essential to understand the pathogenic potential of prevalent strains and to identify any new recombinant variants.
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In this work we present PRyMordial: A package dedicated to efficient computations of observables in the Early Universe with the focus on the cosmological era of Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN). The code offers fast and precise evaluation of BBN light-element abundances together with the effective number of relativistic degrees of freedom, including non-instantaneous decoupling effects. PRyMordial is suitable for state-of-the-art analyses in the Standard Model as well as for general investigations into New Physics active during BBN.

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Compound databases of natural products play a crucial role in drug discovery and development projects and have implications in other areas, such as food chemical research, ecology and metabolomics. Recently, we put together the first version of the Latin American Natural Product database (LANaPDB) as a collective effort of researchers from six countries to ensemble a public and representative library of natural products in a geographical region with a large biodiversity. The present work aims to conduct a comparative and extensive profiling of the natural product-likeness of an updated version of LANaPDB and the individual ten compound databases that form part of LANaPDB.

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This study introduces further insights from the hit-to-lead optimization process involving a series of benzimidazole derivatives acting as inhibitors of the cruzain enzyme, which targets Trypanosoma cruzi, the causative parasite of Chagas disease. Here, we present the design, synthesis and biological evaluation of 30 new compounds as a third generation of benzimidazole analogues with trypanocidal activity, aiming to enhance our understanding of their pharmacokinetic profiles and establish a structure-metabolism relationships within the series. The design of these new analogues was guided by the analysis of previous pharmacokinetic results, considering identified metabolic sites and biotransformation studies.

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Since spring 2022, the global epidemiology of the monkeypox virus (MPXV) has changed. The unprecedented increase of human clade II MPXV cases worldwide heightened concerns about this emerging zoonotic disease. We analysed the positivity rates, viral loads, infectiousness, and persistence of MPXV DNA for up to 4 months in several biological samples from 89 MPXV-confirmed cases.

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Article Synopsis
  • A recent rise in monkeypox (MPXV) cases among humans, particularly among men who have sex with men, has led researchers to investigate potential sexual transmission routes.
  • A study analyzed skin and genital lesion samples from 35 patients using a new molecular syndromic virus panel, finding that 23 tested positive for MPXV but also revealed significant rates of coinfections with other viruses and sexually transmitted infections.
  • These findings emphasize the importance of comprehensive testing for sexually transmitted infections in high-risk populations to ensure accurate diagnosis and effective treatment.
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  • Enterovirus (EV) and parechovirus (HPeV) are prevalent in newborns and are primary causes of aseptic meningitis in infants under 1 year.
  • A study compared 10 infants with HPeV meningitis to 8 with EV meningitis, revealing significantly higher serum C-reactive protein (CRP), white blood cell (WBC), and lymphocyte levels in the EV group.
  • Despite these differences, clinical symptoms alone cannot differentiate between the two infections, and real-time polymerase chain reaction remains the most reliable diagnostic method.
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The application of computer-aided drug discovery (CADD) approaches has enabled the discovery of new antimicrobial therapeutic agents in the past. The high prevalence of methicillin-resistant(MRSA) strains promoted this pathogen to a high-priority pathogen for drug development. In this sense, modern CADD techniques can be valuable tools for the search for new antimicrobial agents.

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Introduction: The objective of this study is to make an inventory of surgical practices and their consequences in the short and medium term on sexuality and micturition comfort.

Materials And Methods: It is a retrospective multicenter study over ten years on 63 men who had an operation for a fracture of the corpora cavernosa associated or not with a urethral lesion. Patient history, clinical presentation, surgical management as well as postoperative data were collected from operative reports.

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Chagas disease is caused by the parasite , and the lack of effective and safe treatments makes identifying new classes of compounds with anti- activity of paramount importance. Hit-to-lead exploration of a metabolically stable -imidazoylpiperazine was performed. Compound , a piperazine derivative active against , was selected to perform the hit-to-lead exploration, which involved the design, synthesis and biological evaluation of 39 new derivatives.

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Article Synopsis
  • The COVID-19 pandemic has led to rapid mutations of the virus SARS-CoV-2, resulting in the emergence of new variants that affect public health.
  • The Lazio region has established a genomic sequencing laboratory network (WGSnet-Lazio) to closely monitor these variants and work alongside an epidemiological surveillance center (SERESMI).
  • Data collected from February 2020 to October 2022 show that this sequencing effort is effective for understanding variant circulation and supporting public health efforts during the pandemic.
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During the 2022-outbreak, peculiar clinical presentations of Mpox have been described, some of which can make the diagnosis of the disease extremely challenging. Here we report a case series of fourteen patients with Mpox pharynogotonsillar involvement (PTI) seen at National Institute for Infectious Diseases, "Lazzaro Spallanzani", in Rome, Italy from May to September 2022. All included patients were men who have sex with men (median age 38 years) reporting unprotected sex within three weeks from symptoms onset.

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(1) Background: BRAF mutations affect 4-5% of lung adenocarcinomas. This study aimed to analyze the clinicopathological features of lung carcinomas with BRAF mutations, focusing on V600E vs. non-V600E and the presence of co-mutations.

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The number of databases of natural products (NPs) has increased substantially. Latin America is extraordinarily rich in biodiversity, enabling the identification of novel NPs, which has encouraged both the development of databases and the implementation of those that are being created or are under development. In a collective effort from several Latin American countries, herein we introduce the first version of the Latin American Natural Products Database (LANaPDB), a public compound collection that gathers the chemical information of NPs contained in diverse databases from this geographical region.

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Background: Despite advances in treatment, the prognosis of resectable pancreatic adenocarcinoma remains poor. Neoadjuvant therapy (NAT) has gained great interest in hopes of improving survival. However, the results of available studies based on different treatment approaches, such as chemotherapy and chemoradiotherapy, showed contrasting results.

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Increasing evidence points towards a causal link between exposure to persistent organic pollutants (POPs) with increased incidence and aggressivity of various cancers. Among these POPs, dioxin and PCB-153 are widely found in our environment and represent a significant source of contamination. Dioxin exposure has already been linked to cancer such as non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, but remains to be more extensively investigated in other cancers.

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The Younger Researchers of the Brazilian Chemical Society committee supports early career researchers promoting communication, collaboration, education, networking, representation, and career development.

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Unlabelled: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the influence of the extent of surgery and radiation therapy (RT) on the rates and sites of local (LR) and regional recurrences (RR) in the EORTC 22922/10925 trial.

Patients And Methods: All data were extracted from the trial's individual patients' case report forms (CRF) and analysed with a median follow-up of 15.7 years.

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The recent measurement of helium-4 from the near-infrared spectroscopy of extremely metal-poor galaxies by the Subaru Survey may point to a new puzzle in the early Universe. We exploit this new helium measurement together with the percent-level determination of primordial deuterium, to assess indications for a nonvanishing lepton asymmetry during the big bang nucleosynthesis era, paying particular attention to the role of uncertainties in the nuclear reaction network. A cutting-edge Bayesian analysis focused on the role of the newly measured extremely metal-poor galaxies, jointly with information from the cosmic microwave background, suggests the existence of a nonzero lepton asymmetry at around the 2σ level, providing a hint for cosmology beyond lambda cold dark matter.

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