SARS-CoV-2 infection can affect all human beings, including pregnant women. Thus, understanding the immunological changes induced by the virus during pregnancy is nowadays of pivotal importance. ...Here, using peripheral blood from 14 pregnant women with asymptomatic or mild SARS-CoV-2 infection, we investigate cell proliferation and cytokine production, measure plasma levels of 62 cytokines, and perform a 38-parameter mass cytometry analysis. Our results show an increase in low density neutrophils but no lymphopenia or gross alterations of white blood cells, which display normal levels of differentiation, activation or exhaustion markers and show well preserved functionality. Meanwhile, the plasma levels of anti-inflammatory cytokines such as interleukin (IL)-1RA, IL-10 and IL-19 are increased, those of IL-17, PD-L1 and D-dimer are decreased, but IL-6 and other inflammatory molecules remain unchanged. Our profiling of antiviral immune responses may thus help develop therapeutic strategies to avoid virus-induced damages during pregnancy.
We prove a new
A
-caloric approximation lemma compatible with an Orlicz setting. With this result, we establish a partial regularity result for parabolic systems of the type
u
t
-
div
a
(
D
u
)
=
0
.
...Here the growth of
a
is bounded by the derivative of an
N
-function
φ
. The primary assumption for
φ
is that
t
φ
′
′
(
t
)
and
φ
′
(
t
)
are uniformly comparable on
(
0
,
∞
)
.
In this paper we consider a linear elliptic equation in divergence form
0.1
∑
i
,
j
D
j
(
a
ij
(
x
)
D
i
u
)
=
0
in
Ω
.
Assuming the coefficients
a
ij
in
W
1
,
n
(
Ω
)
with a modulus of continuity ...satisfying a certain Dini-type continuity condition, we prove that any very weak solution
u
∈
L
loc
n
′
(
Ω
)
of (
0.1
) is actually a weak solution in
W
loc
1
,
2
(
Ω
)
.
Transitional waters are among the most productive ecosystems of the world and their biotic communities show high diversity and complex mechanisms of self-regulation that provide valuable ecosystem ...services and societal goods and benefits. In this work a comparison of the fish assemblages of three non-tidal Mediterranean coastal lagoons is carried out in order to evaluate the impacts of alternative management strategies. The anthropogenic pressures acting on the lagoons were quantified by means of categorical indicators, while the characteristics of the fish assemblages were summarized in multi-metric indices (MMIs). Two MMIs were developed using data collected with a beach seine net and with fyke nets, following an empirical approach that selects, from a pool of 73 metrics, the combination that maximizes the MMI/pressure relationship. The two MMIs include four metrics each, most of which are based on feeding mode functional guilds and habitat use functional guilds, and they are sensitive to anthropogenic pressures. The human activities directly or indirectly affecting water quality are the ones that most influence the fish assemblage, while the presence of artisanal fisheries, a typical and relevant resource use in these lagoons, seems to play a beneficial role. Lagoon fisheries management relies on the maintenance of infrastructures that guarantee the hydraulic functioning of the lagoon, thus ensuring exchanges with the adjacent coastal sea, and therefore indirectly contributing to the habitat quality.
Nerve-sparing radical hysterectomy has been implemented in order to reduce pelvic floor dysfunctions in women undergoing radical surgery for cervical cancer. Here, we aimed to investigate if the ...adoption of laparoscopic surgery impacts on patients' outcomes.
Data of consecutive patients affected by cervical cancer who had laparoscopic nerve-sparing radical hysterectomy were matched 1:1 with an historical cohort of patients undergoing open procedure. A propensity-score matched algorithm was applied.
Thirty-five patients' pairs (70 patients: 35 undergoing laparoscopic vs. 35 undergoing open abdominal nerve-sparing radical hysterectomy) were included. Demographic and baseline oncologic characteristics were balanced between groups. Patients undergoing laparoscopic surgery had similar operative time than patients undergoing open abdominal procedures (249 ±91.5 vs. 223 ±65.0 minutes; p=0.066). Laparoscopic approach correlated with lower blood loss (30.5 ±11.0 vs. 190 90.4 mL; p<0.001) and shorter hospital stay (3.2 ±1.2 vs. 5.4 2.0 days; p=0.023). Patients undergoing laparoscopy experienced a lower 30-day pelvic floor dysfunction rate than patients having open surgery. Moreover, they experienced shorter recovery of bladder function than patients having open procedures (median, 7 vs. 9 days; p=0.004, log-rank test).
Laparoscopic approach resulted in a faster recovery of bladder function in comparison to open surgery for patients undergoing nerve-sparing radical hysterectomy.
Silver eel samples, collected from the lagoons of Fogliano and Caprolace (Italy), were investigated for a broad range of contaminants (29 polychlorinated biphenyls, 9 polybrominated diphenyl ethers, ...5 dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, 5 chlordanes, hexachlorobenzene, 3 hexachlorocyclohexane, and 5 metals). Concentrations of targeted compounds stand for a general low contamination pattern. Infestation by
Anguillicola crassus
and virus infections were also examined. No parasite infestation was found, while infected silver eels had a low prevalence for EVEX, and, for the first time in the Mediterranean area, for AngHV-1. Overall, a good quality status of escaping silver eels, for both lagoons, was highlighted by the use of integrative Indexes. A quality assessment of the ecological status of the two lagoons was carried out developing an expert judgment approach, in order to characterize the habitat of eel stocks. A Final Pressure Index was derived, whose values showed an overall limited global anthropogenic impact acting on both lagoons. Results stand for the suitability of an integrated approach to assess lagoon habitats and eel local stocks quality. This could be proposed as a tool to identify sites yielding high quality eel spawners in the Mediterranean region, in order to set up suitable management frameworks, providing elements to appraise and discuss the potential of coastal lagoons in the Mediterranean region towards the recovery of the eel global stock.
Technological innovation and the modernization of manufacturing procedures have thoroughly redefined the field of nickel–titanium (NiTi) rotary and reciprocating endodontic instruments ...
Endometrial cancer (EC) is the most common malignancy of the female genital tract in Western and emerging countries. In 2012, new cancer cases numbered 319,605, and 76,160 cancer deaths were ...diagnosed worldwide. ECs are usually diagnosed after menopause; 70% of ECs are diagnosed at an early stage with a favorable prognosis and a 5-year overall survival rate of 77%. On the contrary, women with advanced or recurrent disease have extremely poor outcomes because they show a low response rate to conventional chemotherapy. EC is generally considered easy to treat, although it presents a 5-year mortality of 25%. Though the guidelines (GLs) recommend treatment in specialized centers by physicians specializing in gynecologic oncology, most women are managed by general gynecologists, resulting in differences and discrepancies in clinical management. In this paper we reviewed the literature with the aim of highlighting where the treatment of EC patients requires gynecologic oncologists, as suggested by the GLs. Moreover, we sought to identify the causes of the lack of GL adherence, suggesting useful changes to ensure adequate treatment for all EC patients.
Mediterranean coastal lagoons are increasingly affected by several threats, all concurrently leading to habitat degradation and loss. Methods based on fish for the assessment of the ecological status ...are under implementation for the Water Framework Directive requirements, to assess the overall quality of coastal lagoons. Complementary tools based on the use of single fish species as biological indicators could be useful as early detection methods of anthropogenic impacts. The analysis of skeletal anomalies in the big-scale sand smelt, Atherina boyeri, from nine Mediterranean coastal lagoons in Italy was carried out. Along with the morphological examination of fish, the environmental status of the nine lagoons was evaluated using a method based on expert judgement, by selecting and quantifying several environmental descriptors of direct and indirect human pressures acting on lagoon ecosystems. The average individual anomaly load and the frequency of individuals with severe anomalies allow to discriminate big-scale sand smelt samples on the basis of the site and of its quality status. Furthermore, a relationship between skeletal anomalies and the environmental quality of specific lagoons, driven by the anthropogenic pressures acting on them, was found. These findings support the potentiality of skeletal anomalies monitoring in big-scale sand smelt as a tool for early detection of anthropogenic impacts in coastal lagoons of the Mediterranean region.
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