Patients with severe malaria treated with artesunate sometimes experience a delayed hemolytic episode. Artesunate (AS) induces pitting, a splenic process whereby dead parasites are expelled from ...their host erythrocytes. These once-infected erythrocytes then return to the circulation. We analyzed hematologic parameters in 123 travelers treated with AS for severe malaria. Among 60 nontransfused patients observed for more than 8 days, 13 (22%) had delayed hemolysis. The peak concentration of circulating once-infected erythrocytes was measured during the first week in 21 patients and was significantly higher in 9 patients with delayed hemolysis than in 12 with other patterns of anemia (0.30 vs 0.07; P = .0001). The threshold of 180 million once-infected erythrocytes per liter discriminated patients with delayed hemolysis with 89% sensitivity and 83% specificity. Once-infected erythrocyte morphology analyzed by using ImageStream in 4 patients showed an 8.9% reduction in their projected area, an alteration likely contributing to their shorter lifespan. Delayed clearance of infected erythrocytes spared by pitting during AS treatment is an original mechanism of hemolytic anemia. Our findings consolidate a disease framework for posttreatment anemia in malaria in which delayed hemolysis is a new entity. The early concentration of once-infected erythrocytes is a solid candidate marker to predict post-AS delayed hemolysis
•After being killed by artesunate, malaria parasites are expelled from red cells and then these pitted red cells reenter the circulation.•When many pitted red cells are produced during therapy, their delayed clearance a few weeks later triggers hemolytic episodes.
Laboratory-acquired infections due to a variety of bacteria, viruses, parasites, and fungi have been described over the last century, and laboratory workers are at risk of exposure to these ...infectious agents. However, reporting laboratory-associated infections has been largely voluntary, and there is no way to determine the real number of people involved or to know the precise risks for workers. In this study, an international survey based on volunteering was conducted in biosafety level 3 and 4 laboratories to determine the number of laboratory-acquired infections and the possible underlying causes of these contaminations. The analysis of the survey reveals that laboratory-acquired infections have been infrequent and even rare in recent years, and human errors represent a very high percentage of the cases. Today, most risks from biological hazards can be reduced through the use of appropriate procedures and techniques, containment devices and facilities, and the training of personnel.
The action of the 2D O(3) nonlinear sigma model on the lattice in a bath of particles, when expressed in terms of standard O (3) degrees of freedom, is complex. A reformulation of the model in terms ...of new variables that makes the action real is presented. This reshaping enables us to utilize Monte Carlo simulations based on usual importance sampling. Several observables, including the correlation function and the mass gap, are measured.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has been engaged to complement medical surveillance and in some cases to also act as an early diagnosis indicator of viral spreading ...in the community. Most efforts worldwide by the scientific community and commercial companies focus on the formulation of protocols for SARS-CoV-2 analysis in wastewater and approaches addressing the quantitative relationship between WBE and medical surveillance are lacking. In the present study, a mathematical model is developed which uses as input the number of daily positive medical tests together with the highly non-linear shedding rate curve of individuals to estimate the evolution of global virus shedding rate in wastewater along calendar days. A comprehensive parametric study by the model using as input actual medical surveillance and WBE data for the city of Thessaloniki (~700,000 inhabitants, North Greece) during the outbreak of November 2020 reveals the conditions under which WBE can be used as an early warning tool for predicting pandemic outbreaks. It is shown that early warning capacity is different along the days of an outbreak and depends strongly on the number of days apart between the day of maximum shedding rate of infected individuals in their disease cycle and the day of their medical testing. The present data indicate for Thessaloniki an average early warning capacity of around 2 days. Moreover, the data imply that there exists a proportion between unreported cases (asymptomatic persons with mild symptoms that do not seek medical advice) and reported cases. The proportion increases with the number of reported cases. The early detection capacity of WBE improves substantially in the presence of an increasing number of unreported cases. For Thessaloniki at the peak of the pandemic in mid-November 2020, the number of unreported cases reached a maximum around 4 times the number of reported cases.
Display omitted
•Model estimates viral load evolution in wastewater from infected people dynamics.•Identifying actual conditions for which WBE can be used as an early warning tool.•Early warning capacity increases with an increasing number of unreported cases.•In Thessaloniki November 2020 outbreak, ~2 days of WBE early warning is suggested.•In Thessaloniki Nov.’20, WBE suggests unreported cases up to 4 times reported ones.
SARS-CoV2 RNA detection in a pancreatic pseudocyst sample Schepis, T.; Larghi, A.; Papa, A. ...
Pancreatology : official journal of the International Association of Pancreatology (IAP) ... et al.,
07/2020, Letnik:
20, Številka:
5
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The involvement of gastrointestinal system in SARS-CoV2 related disease, COVID-19, is increasingly recognized. COVID-19 associated pancreatic injury has been suggested, but its correlation with ...pancreatic disease is still unclear. In this case report, we describe the detection of SARS-CoV2 RNA in a pancreatic pseudocyst fluid sample collected from a patient with SARS-CoV2 associated pneumonia and a pancreatic pseudocyst developed as a complication of an acute edematous pancreatitis. The detection of SARS-CoV2 within the pancreatic collection arise the question of whether this virus has a tropism for pancreatic tissue and whether it plays a role in pancreatic diseases occurrence.
Abstract Background and purpose One of the new challenges to improve radiotherapy is to increase the ionizing effect by using nanoparticles. The interest of titanate nanotubes (TiONts) associated ...with radiotherapy was evaluated in two human glioblastoma cell lines (SNB-19 and U87MG). Materials and methods Titanate nanotubes were synthetized by the hydrothermal treatment of titanium dioxide powder in a strongly basic NaOH solution. The cytotoxicity of TiONts was evaluated on SNB-19 and U87MG cell lines by cell proliferation assay. The internalization of TiONts was studied using Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM). Finally, the effect of TiONts on cell radiosensitivity was evaluated using clonogenic assay. Cell cycle distribution was evaluated by flow cytometry after DNA labeling. DNA double-stranded breaks were evaluated using γH2AX labeling. Results Cells internalized TiONts through the possible combination of endocytosis and diffusion with no cytotoxicity. Clonogenic assays showed that cell lines incubated with TiONts were radiosensitized with a decrease in the SF2 parameter for both SNB-19 and U87MG cells. TiONts decreased DNA repair efficiency after irradiation and amplified G2 /M cell-cycle arrest. Conclusion Our results indicated that further development of TiONts might provide a new useful tool for research and clinical therapy in the field of oncology.
The cylindrical drift chamber is the most innovative part of the MEG II detector, the upgraded version of the MEG experiment. The MEG II chamber differs from the MEG one because it is a single volume ...cylindrical structure, instead of a segmented one, chosen to improve its resolutions and efficiency in detecting low energy positrons from muon decays at rest. In this paper, we show the characteristics and performances of this fundamental part of the MEG II apparatus and we discuss the impact of its higher resolution and efficiency on the sensitivity of the MEG II experiment. Because of its innovative structure and high quality resolution and efficiency the MEG II cylindrical drift chamber will be a cornerstone in the development of an ideal tracking detector for future positron-electron collider machines.
The Low-Frequency Array radio telescope discovered the 707 Hz binary millisecond pulsar (MSP) J0952−0607 in a targeted radio pulsation search of an unidentified Fermi gamma-ray source. This source ...shows a weak energy flux of Fγ = 2.6 × 10−12 erg cm−2 s−1 in the energy range between 100 MeV and 100 GeV. Here we report the detection of pulsed gamma-ray emission from PSR J0952−0607 in a very sensitive gamma-ray pulsation search. The pulsar's rotational, binary, and astrometric properties are measured over 7 years of Fermi-Large Area Telescope data. For this we take into account the uncertainty on the shape of the gamma-ray pulse profile. We present an updated radio-timing solution now spanning more than 2 years and show results from optical modeling of the black-widow-type companion based on new multiband photometric data taken with HiPERCAM on the Gran Telescopio Canarias on La Palma and ULTRACAM on the New Technology Telescope at ESO La Silla (based on observations collected at the European Southern Observatory, Chile; programme 0101.D-0925, PI: Clark, C. J.). PSR J0952−0607 is now the fastest-spinning pulsar for which the intrinsic spin-down rate has been reliably constrained ( ). The inferred surface magnetic field strength of is among the 10 lowest of all known pulsars. This discovery is another example of an extremely fast spinning black-widow pulsar hiding within an unidentified Fermi gamma-ray source. In the future such systems might help to pin down the maximum spin frequency and the minimum surface magnetic field strength of MSPs.
PDF
