Characteristics of the population with mild COVID-19 symptoms eligible for early treatment attended in a single center in Northern Italy.

After more than two years from the first COVID-19 detected case in Brescia, Northern Italy, monoclonal antibodies and antiviral therapy aimed at early treatment of mild COVID-19 in patients at risk of progression and of hospitalization has been approved in Italy. Here we report the characteristics of the population eligible for the COVID-19 early treatments at our COVID-19 Early Therapy Unit of the Infectious Diseases Department of the ASST Spedali Civili of Brescia, with the aim to evaluate the characteristics of the foreign and native groups. Up to March the 31st, 2022, a total of 559 patients were referred to our Unit for COVID-19 early treatment, where 7.

Invasive aspergillosis in relapsed/refractory acute myeloid leukaemia patients: Results from SEIFEM 2016-B survey.

Background: In patients with relapsed/refractory acute myeloid leukaemia (R/R AML) who received salvage chemotherapy, limited and not updated studies explored the incidence of invasive aspergillosis (IA) and the role of antifungal prophylaxis (AP). The aims of this multicentre retrospective 'SEIFEM 2016-B' study were as follows: (1) to evaluate the current rate and the outcome of proven/probable IA and (2) to assess the efficacy of AP, in a large 'real life' series of patient with R/R AML submitted to salvage chemotherapy.

Results: Of 2250 R/R AML patients, a total of 74 cases of IA (5.

[Steroidi tra necessità e tossicità].

Steroid minimization has always been one of the most desired goals regarding immunosuppressive therapy after renal transplantation. Following the introduction of cyclosporine different steroid-free protocols became available, but their implementation was limited due to the high risk of acute rejection. In the last few years, the use of a very low dose of prednisone (5 mg/day) has been deemed to guarantee a good balance between steroid toxicity and efficacy.

The cascade of care of HIV after one year of follow-up in a cohort of HIV-positive adult patients in three health settings of Morrumbene in rural Mozambique.

Objective: To assess the state of the retention in care of HIV patients in three health settings in Morrumbene, a rural district of Inhambane Province, Mozambique. We evaluated potential factors associated with early loss to follow-up (LTFU), retention in care and ART adherence during the first year of follow-up.

Material And Methods: Retrospective, cross-sectional, observational study.

Estimated glomerular filtration rate is a marker of mortality in the European Scleroderma Trials and Research Group (EUSTAR) database.

Objectives: The study aim was to evaluate the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), its association with clinical disease and its predictive ability with respect to mortality in SSc patients from the European Scleroderma Trials and Research Group (EUSTAR) database.

Methods: SSc patients from the EUSTAR database who had items required for the calculation of eGFR at a baseline visit and a second follow-up visit available were included. A cut-off eGFR value of 60 ml/min was chosen for all SSc patients, and 30 ml/min for those with scleroderma renal crisis (SRC).

Impact of invasive aspergillosis occurring during first induction therapy on outcome of acute myeloid leukaemia (SEIFEM-12B study).

Background: Acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) patients are at high risk of invasive aspergillosis (IA) after first induction chemotherapy (CHT). Although IA risk factors have been identified, few data are available on impact of IA, occurring during induction phase, on overall AML outcome.

Patients And Results: The end point of this multicentre, case-control, study was to evaluate whether IA, occurring after first induction CHT, can affect treatment schedule and patient's outcome.

Comparative study between two European inception cohorts of patients with early systemic lupus erythematosus.

Objectives: To compare the main characteristics of two inception cohorts (Italian [ITC] and Spanish [SPC]) cohorts of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) at the time of diagnosis and at one year of follow-up.

Methods: Demographic, clinical and immunological characteristics, and treatments at SLE diagnosis and at 12 months of follow-up of ITC and SPC were compared.

Results: One hundred and sixty-four patients in the ITC and 231 patients in the SPC were compared.

[The dawn of Parma's nefrological school as told by one of its students].

This paper, written by Professor Rosario Maiorca, describes the everyday professional life in the institutes of Clinica Medica and subsequently of Patologia Medica at Parma University in the second half of the fifties and in the first years of the sixties of the past century. Those institutes and that period, which have been very important for the birth of Nephrology in Italy, have already been described, from the historical standpoint, in an Italian monograph on the history of our specialty for the period 1957-2007. The present paper adds to that chapter an insight of "real life", with a lively description of the wide and passionate clinical and scientific activities of the young doctors in training and of the personality, greatly stimulating and altruistic, of their "Masters".

Author Correction: The copy number variation landscape of congenital anomalies of the kidney and urinary tract.

In the version of this article initially published, affiliation 38 incorrectly read "ICNU-Nephrology and Urology Department, Barcelona, Spain"; "Renal Division, Hospital Clinic, IDIBAPS, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain" is the correct affiliation. The error has been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the article.

'Real-life' analysis of the role of antifungal prophylaxis in preventing invasive aspergillosis in AML patients undergoing consolidation therapy: Sorveglianza Epidemiologica Infezioni nelle Emopatie (SEIFEM) 2016 study.

Background: We evaluated the incidence of proven/probable invasive aspergillosis (IA) and the role of antifungal prophylaxis (AP) in a 'real-life' setting of patients with AML receiving intensive consolidation therapy.

Methods: Cases of IA, observed during consolidation in adult/paediatric patients with AML between 2011 and 2015, were retrospectively collected in a multicentre Italian study.

Results: Of 2588 patients, 56 (2.

The copy number variation landscape of congenital anomalies of the kidney and urinary tract.

Congenital anomalies of the kidney and urinary tract (CAKUT) are a major cause of pediatric kidney failure. We performed a genome-wide analysis of copy number variants (CNVs) in 2,824 cases and 21,498 controls. Affected individuals carried a significant burden of rare exonic (that is, affecting coding regions) CNVs and were enriched for known genomic disorders (GD).

Early Lupus Project: one-year follow-up of an Italian cohort of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus of recent onset.

Objective To describe the clinical and serological features of a prospectively followed cohort of early diagnosed systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients during a one-year follow-up period. Methods SLE patients with disease duration less than 12 months were consecutively enrolled in a multicentre, prospective study. At study entry and then every 6 months, a large panel of data was recorded.

[Adherence and alleance: psychoanalytic observations at the service of medicine.].

About the relationship between medicine and psychoanalysis it has been written a lot, in primis in the psycho-somatic perspective, in secundis in the psychic modulation of health and disease. In this paper a different perspective is adopted. Both psychoanalysis and medicine are currently confronted with different patients than in the past, indeed nowadays patients are often more fragile, as in the somatic as in the psychic problems.

Exome-wide Association Study Identifies GREB1L Mutations in Congenital Kidney Malformations.

Renal agenesis and hypodysplasia (RHD) are major causes of pediatric chronic kidney disease and are highly genetically heterogeneous. We conducted whole-exome sequencing in 202 case subjects with RHD and identified diagnostic mutations in genes known to be associated with RHD in 7/202 case subjects. In an additional affected individual with RHD and a congenital heart defect, we found a homozygous loss-of-function (LOF) variant in SLIT3, recapitulating phenotypes reported with Slit3 inactivation in the mouse.

[ADPKD and Heart].

Autosomal Polycystic Kidney Disease ( ADPKD) is the most common inherited renal disease. ADPKD is caused by mutations in PKD1 and PKD2, encoding polycystin 1 and 2, respectively. ADPKD is a systemic disease, with renal and extrarenal involvement.

Genetic Drivers of Kidney Defects in the DiGeorge Syndrome.

Background: The DiGeorge syndrome, the most common of the microdeletion syndromes, affects multiple organs, including the heart, the nervous system, and the kidney. It is caused by deletions on chromosome 22q11.2; the genetic driver of the kidney defects is unknown.

Risk stratification for invasive fungal infections in patients with hematological malignancies: SEIFEM recommendations.

Invasive fungal infections (IFIs) are an important cause of morbidity and mortality in immunocompromised patients. Patients with hematological malignancies undergoing conventional chemotherapy, autologous or allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation are considered at high risk, and Aspergillus spp. represents the most frequently isolated micro-organisms.

[Acromegaly: reducing diagnostic delay].

Diagnostic delay of acromegaly is still very relevant (6-8 years on average) without substantial changes in last twenty years. Clinical impact of this diagnostic delay is significant: tumor growth (2/3 of the patients at diagnosis bear a pituitary macroadenoma), development of irreversible complications (arthropathy, sleep apnea) and in all increased mortality. Reasons for this delay are related to the disease itself (facial and acral changes are very slow and subtle) but also to medical unawareness.

Detection of EpCAM-positive microparticles in pleural fluid: A new approach to mini-invasively identify patients with malignant pleural effusions.

Pleural biomarkers allowing to mini-invasively discriminate benign from malignant pleural effusions are needed. Among potential candidates, microparticles (MPs) are extracellular vesicles that vectorize antigen derived from the parent cell. We hypothesized that tumor-derived MPs could be present in the pleural liquid and help to identify patients with malignant pleural effusions.

[Literature review and state of the art of the Italian law on medically assisted reproduction].

This article analyzes the current situation of medically assisted reproduction in Italy after the promulgation of Law 40 in 2004. This law is actually completely different from the origin version. The controversial points like reproduction for couples who bear genetic diseases, prohibition of heterologous fertilization, cryoconservation of the embryos, obligation to perform just one and contemporaneous implant of all the embryos produced, are today definitively erased.

Digital ulcers predict a worse disease course in patients with systemic sclerosis.

Objective: Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a systemic autoimmune disease with high morbidity and significant mortality. There is a great need of predictors that would allow risk stratification of patients with SSc and ultimately initiation of treatment early enough to ensure optimal clinical results. In this study, we evaluated whether a history of digital ulcers (HDU) at presentation may be a predictor of vascular outcomes and of overall clinical worsening and death in patients with SSc.

Autologous transplantation and maintenance therapy in multiple myeloma.

Background: This open-label, randomized, phase 3 study compared melphalan at a dose of 200 mg per square meter of body-surface area plus autologous stem-cell transplantation with melphalan-prednisone-lenalidomide (MPR) and compared lenalidomide maintenance therapy with no maintenance therapy in patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma.

Methods: We randomly assigned 273 patients 65 years of age or younger to high-dose melphalan plus stem-cell transplantation or MPR consolidation therapy after induction, and 251 patients to lenalidomide maintenance therapy or no maintenance therapy. The primary end point was progression-free survival.