Burden of caregiving of alcohol related liver disease patients: a possible role of training and caregiver groups frequency. Proposal of a method, preliminary results.

Background: The patient with alcohol related liver disease (ALD) is an extremely complex patient who can be affected by various problems: alcohol use disorders (AUDs) (intoxication or withdrawal syndrome), psychopathological manifestations, hepatic encephalopathy (HE), family and social discomfort. Burden of caregiving for this type of patient is particularly severe. For this reason we propose our own working model.

Early and Polyantigenic CD4 T Cell Responses Correlate with Mild Disease in Acute COVID-19 Donors.

We assessed SARS-CoV-2-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cell responses in samples from 89 acute COVID-19 patients, utilizing blood samples collected during the first wave of COVID-19 in Italy. The goal of the study was to examine correlations between SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell responses in the early phase comparing mild, moderate, or severe COVID-19 disease outcomes. T cell responses to the spike (S) and non-S proteins were measured in a combined activation-induced marker (AIM) and intracellular cytokine staining (ICS) assay.

Commentary: Metabolic associated liver disease: an inevitable terminological evolution in real practice.

In real practice, the patient with liver disease is often the carrier of multiple etiological factors, such as metabolic syndrome (MS) and alcohol consumption (AC). Their co-presence is often underestimated as AC is not adequately studied. AC is a contributing cause of MS and alcoholic and nonalcoholic liver disease have a substantially overlapping histopathological picture.

A comprehensive framework for navigating patient care in systemic sclerosis: A global response to the need for improving the practice of diagnostic and preventive strategies in SSc.

Systemic sclerosis (SSc), the most lethal of rheumatologic conditions, is the cause of death in >50% of SSc cases, led by pulmonary fibrosis followed by pulmonary hypertension and then scleroderma renal crisis (SRC). Multiple other preventable and treatable SSc-related vascular, cardiac, gastrointestinal, nutritional and musculoskeletal complications can lead to disability and death. Vascular injury with subsequent inflammation transforming to irreversible fibrosis and permanent damage characterizes SSc.

Reliable detection of subtypes of nailfold capillary haemorrhages in childhood-onset systemic lupus erythematosus.

Objectives: In systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), it is necessary to obtain biomarkers that predict cardiovascular complications due to premature atherosclerosis, which is related to endothelial dysfunction. Nailfold capillary abnormalities might be a biomarker for endothelial dysfunction. In adults and children with SLE, nailfold capillary haemorrhages have shown to be significantly correlated with disease activity.

Nailfold capillary abnormalities in childhood-onset systemic lupus erythematosus: a cross-sectional study compared with healthy controls.

Objectives: For selection of high-risk systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients it is necessary to obtain indicators of disease severity that predict disease damage. As in systemic sclerosis, nailfold capillary abnormalities could be such a biomarker in SLE. The primary objective of this cross-sectional study is to describe capillary abnormalities in childhood-onset SLE (cSLE) cohort (onset < 18 years) and compare them with matched healthy controls.

The seedbeds of Tuberculosis: is it time to target congregate settings and workplaces?

Countries where the incidence of Tuberculosis (TB) is low display a low transmission rate in the general population, and this rate has progressively declined in recent decades; however, TB epidemiology has shown a shift of the disease burden from the general population to specific populations at higher risk, such as vulnerable individuals and hard-to-reach groups. In low-incidence countries, preventive and therapeutic strategies must therefore be geared towards targeted interventions in these populations, with the priority being to promptly identify and treat latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) rather than manage infectious cases. One of the most complex challenges in this area is to identify population subgroups with increased incidence/prevalence of LTBI/TB.

Neuroinflammation in Primary Open-Angle Glaucoma.

Primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) is the second leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide. Increasing evidence suggests oxidative damage and immune response defects are key factors contributing to glaucoma onset. Indeed, both the failure of the trabecular meshwork tissue in the conventional outflow pathway and the neuroinflammation process, which drives the neurodegeneration, seem to be linked to the age-related over-production of free radicals (i.

The reliability of a deep learning model in clinical out-of-distribution MRI data: A multicohort study.

Deep learning (DL) methods have in recent years yielded impressive results in medical imaging, with the potential to function as clinical aid to radiologists. However, DL models in medical imaging are often trained on public research cohorts with images acquired with a single scanner or with strict protocol harmonization, which is not representative of a clinical setting. The aim of this study was to investigate how well a DL model performs in unseen clinical datasets-collected with different scanners, protocols and disease populations-and whether more heterogeneous training data improves generalization.

Apremilast interferes with the TGFβ1-induced transition of human skin fibroblasts into profibrotic myofibroblasts: in vitro study.

Objectives: Fibroblast-to-myofibroblast transition and extracellular matrix overproduction represent progressive events in chronic inflammatory and fibrotic diseases, in which TGFβ1 is one of the key mediators. Phosphodiesterase 4 (PDE4) acts as a proinflammatory enzyme through the degradation of cyclic adenosine monophosphate and it is overexpressed in skin fibroblasts. The study investigated how apremilast (a PDE4 inhibitor) interferes with the intracellular signalling pathways responsible for the TGFβ1-induced fibroblast-to-myofibroblast transition and profibrotic extracellular matrix protein synthesis.

Capillaroscopy in childhood-onset systemic lupus erythematosus: a first systematic review.

Objectives: Recently, a systematic review indicated that, compared to healthy controls, adult patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) show a significantly more abnormal capillary morphology and greater number of haemorrhages in nailfold capillaroscopy and that these capillary changes are associated with disease activity. As yet, no systematic literature evaluation of capillaroscopy in childhood-onset SLE (cSLE) has been performed. Therefore, we aimed to systematically review the literature on nailfold capillary characteristics in cSLE.

Conscientious Objection to Animal Testing: A Preliminary Survey Among Italian Medical and Veterinary Students.

The use of animals for educational and research purposes is common in both veterinary and human medicine degree courses, and one that involves important ethical considerations. The aim of this study was to assess the extent of differences between the knowledge and attitudes of veterinary students and medical students on animal bioethics, on alternative strategies and on their right to conscientiously object to animal experimentation. To this end, a questionnaire was completed by 733 students (384 human medicine students (HMS) and 349 veterinary medicine students (VMS)).

Parkinsonian traits in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS): a prospective population-based study.

Background: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is characterized by a spectrum of phenotypes, but only a few studies have addressed the presence of parkinsonian (PK) symptoms. The aim of our study was to investigate the occurrence of PK features in a prospective population-based cohort of ALS patients, determining their demographic, clinical, neuropsychological and genetic characteristics, and identifying their morphological and functional imaging correlates.

Methods: A consecutive series of ALS patients were enrolled and prospectively followed for 2 years.

Primary antiphospholipid syndrome during aromatase inhibitors therapy: A case report and review of the literature.

Rationale: Aromatase inhibitors (AIs) are a class of drugs widely used in the treatment of estrogen sensitive breast and ovarian cancer which convert testosterone to estradiol and androstenedione to estrogen. The AIs of third generation, including anastrazole, letrozole and exemestane, have actually become the standard of care of estrogen-receptor-positive breast cancer in menopausal women and are recommended as adjuvant treatment after surgery in place of/or following tamoxifen. Their main side-effects include reduction in bone mineral density, occurrence of menopausal manifestations and development of musculoskeletal symptoms which are, usually, transient, but sometimes evolve into a typical form of arthritis, such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA).