Postnatal depression, the most frequent complication occurring after pregnancy, is often not recognized. The prevalence of postnatal depression is currently considered to be 10-15% in western ...countries. A wide range of risk factors related to postnatal depression were researched in international studies. Our aim was to evaluate the risk factors and their frequency in a women population of Bergamo Province and compare the results with findings of international literature.
595 women taking part to antenatal courses in three hospitals in Bergamo Province were screened for Postnatal Depression using EPDS and clinical interview. Prevalence and possible psychosocial risk factors data were collected and subsequently analysed and compared with literature findings.
Thirty six (7.1%) women of our sample had postnatal depression. Depressed mood and depression during pregnancy, anxiety during pregnancy, poor social support, recent life events, a history of depression or other psychiatric history, presence of maternity blues were the strongest predictors of postnatal depression in our sample.
The Psychosocial risk factors emerged from our study are substantially the same indicated by international studies, on the contrary prevalence is a little lower. This result may be explained considering that our women sample wasn't completely representative of general population.
Programmed cell death or apoptosis has been shown to play a central role in CD4+ T cell depletion following HIV infection. Because most apoptotic signals are delivered through T cell receptor ...stimulation, we investigated whether T cell depletion in AIDS is a stochastic phenomenon or if it preferentially affects T cell subsets defined by their interaction with superantigens. To address this problem we have taken advantage of the exclusive property of superantigens to trigger T cells expressing selective sets of T cell receptor V beta elements. Here we report that CD4+ T cells from HIV-infected patients can proliferate in vitro to T cell receptor mobilization by some superantigens, but not others. Furthermore, the failure of T cells to respond to some superantigens was shown to be due to an active cell death process that differentially affected T cells capable of interacting with different superantigens. The selective programmed cell death priming of T cells responsive to particular superantigens, observed in this study, suggests that T cell depletion in HIV infection is not simply due to the cytopathic effect of the virus. The possible link between programmed cell death and T cell receptor variable regions suggested by the present experiments may help to better define current models of AIDS pathogenesis.
Recent studies showed that both the pineal gland and the endogenous opioid system are involved in the modulation of the immune system and in the regulation of tumor growth. Moreover, a relationship ...between pineal and opioid system has been demonstrated. In order get an overall view of the psychoneuroendocrine interactions in cancer patients, the levels of melatonin, the most important pineal hormone, and of β‐endorphin have been measured on blood samples collected during the morning. The study was carried out on 54 patients, 42 healthy subjects, and in 34 patients having illnesses other than cancer. Breast cancer, lung carcinoma, and colorectum cancer were the three neoplasms detected in the patients investigated. Growth hormone (GH), somatomedin‐C and prolactin (PRL) levels were also determined. β‐endorphin levels were found to be substantially within the normal range in patients with cancer, whereas those of melatonin were raised in several cases. The β‐endorphin/melatonin ratio was higher than 2 in normal subjects, in non‐neoplastic patients and in most cancer patients without metastases, whereas this ratio was lower than 2 in almost all patients in a metastatic stage of the disease. Neither melatonin levels nor those of β‐endorphin appeared to be significantly correlated with GH, somatomedin‐C, and PRL concentrations. The low β‐endorphin/melatonin ratio observed in metastatic patients suggests the presence of an unbalanced relation between the pineal and the opioid system in those subjects. Therefore, an anomalous relationship between pineal function and opioid activity might play a role in the clinical course of neoplastic disease.
It is known that the pineal gland has some antitumor activity. Melatonin, its most important hormone, has been shown to inhibit tumor growth in vivo and in vitro. Moreover, some investigations have ...demonstrated an altered melatonin secretion in cancer patients. Despite these interesting data, clinical trials have never been carried out to evaluate the effects of melatonin on human neoplasms. The aim of this study was to draw some preliminary conclusions on melatonin therapy in advanced human neoplasms. Nineteen patients suffering from advanced solid tumors, which did not respond to standard therapies, entered the study. Performance status (PS) was 20 or less in 9 cases, and more than 20 in the other 10. Melatonin was given intramuscularly at a daily dose of 20 mg at 3.00 p.m., followed by a maintenance period with lower doses in patients who had a remission, a stabilization of disease or an improvement in PS. Among patients with a PS higher than 20, a partial response was achieved in one case with cancer of the pancreas; moreover, 5 of 10 had stable disease, but the other 4 cases had a progression; an evident improvement of PS was obtained in 6 of the 10 cases. In contrast, among patients with a very poor PS, 7 of 9 died within the first 2 months of therapy. This preliminary study would suggest that melatonin may be of some value in treating cancer patients in whom standard antitumor therapies have failed, particularly in improving their PS and quality of life.
