Background
To assess endothelial cell damage after glaucoma surgery and combined glaucoma and cataract surgery in one or two steps using confocal biomicroscopy.
Methods
This is an observational ...retrospective study. Eighty eyes from 62 patients between 60 and 83 years of age were studied. Eyes fell into a control group (
n
= 21) and three experimental groups, in which trabeculectomy (group 1;
n
= 21) or trabeculectomy and phacoemulsification and intraocular lens implantation had been performed, in one (group 2;
n
= 21) or two (group 3;
n
= 17) steps between 6 months and 5 years before.
Results
In the control group, mean corneal endothelial cell density (±SD) was 2,619 ± 319 cells/mm
2
, whereas in the experimental groups 1, 2 and 3 it was 2,447 ± 425, 1,968 ± 342 and 1,551 ± 323 cells/mm
2
respectively. Cell densities found in the combined surgery groups were significantly smaller than the densities of the control or trabeculectomy groups. The variation coefficient of the endothelial cell area (±SD) was 41.19 ± 7.46% in the control group and 38.9 ± 6.02, 42.37 ± 9.53 and 45.71 ± 11.96% in groups 1, 2 and 3 respectively, differences that were not statistically significant. The percentage of hexagonality (±SD) was 51.10 ± 8.41% in the control group and 51.4 ± 6.88, 45.13 ± 8.40 and 42.37 ± 9.53% in the experimental groups 1, 2 and 3 respectively, but again there were no significant differences between them.
Conclusions
Combined trabeculectomy, phacoemulsification and intraocular lens implantation causes more endothelial cell damage than trabeculectomy alone, and the two-step combined procedure causes more damage to the endothelium than the one-step combined procedure.
The Solar Wind Focused Science Topic (FST) team was created to apply a combination of theoretical studies, numerical simulations, and observations to the understanding of how the fast and slow solar ...wind are heated and accelerated. Four proposals were selected for this FST team. They will investigate the role of energy sources and kinetic mechanisms responsible for the heating and acceleration of the solar wind. In particular, the FST team will examine magnetic reconnection and turbulence as possible heating mechanisms. Plasma properties and their evolution over the solar cycle, determined from the analysis of remote and in situ measurements, will be used to put firm constraints on the models. The work of the Solar Wind FST team is in its initial stages. The organization, planning, and findings resulting from the first FST team meeting will be reported.
To describe the 12-month evolution of lipid profile in HIV-infected virologically suppressed patients substituting tenofovir for stavudine.
'Recover' was a prospective, multicenter, switch study ...conducted at 120 HIV units across Spain designed to identify single nucleoside analogue substitution due to adverse events in real practice. Tenofovir substituted stavudine in 873 adult patients. No other substitutions were allowed. This lipid sub-study included 352 randomly recruited patients with complete follow-up and lipid parameters.
Changes in fasting levels of total cholesterol (TC), high and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C and LDL-C), and triglycerides (TG) at 48 weeks, and their cardiovascular risk (CVR) translation.
At 48 weeks, there was a sustained reduction in median TC (-17.5 mg/dl; P < 0.001), LDL-C (-8.1 mg/dl; P < 0.001), and TG (-35 mg/dl; P < 0.001). HDL-C remained roughly unchanged (-0.8 mg/dl). Patients with baseline hyperlipidaemia showed greater reductions in LDL-C (-29 mg/dl; P < 0.001) and TG (-76 mg/dl; P < 0.001). The greatest TG reduction was observed in patients with severe hyper-TG (-266 mg/dl; P < 0.001). The estimated 10-year CVR decreased in all patients (P < 0.001), and to a higher extent in patients with baseline hyperlipidaemia. There was a trend towards reduction according to the use of lipid-lowering agents (11.6% to 9,9%; P = non-significant).
The substitution of tenofovir for stavudine causes a sustained improvement of dyslipidaemia. The reduction, although modest, is robust and sustained over time, and significantly reduces the CVR. This switch strategy is safe and contributes to an improvement in the lipid profile, especially TG, in HAART-treated patients.
In the first part of this paper, an experimental study of the influence of boom movements on ground distribution showed that a geometric static model should correctly be used for simulations. Such ...model was developed in Cemagref. The objective of this second part is to validate the results of this model for several kinds of excitation in laboratory and field conditions: laboratory validation used a conveyor and a shaking platform to reproduce pure vertical and horizontal movements; field validation was assessed on both concrete and field tracks to analyse combined movements. Then the model was used to define an evaluation method for sprayer boom behaviour at farm level. The concept is for the sprayer to travel over a bump, to measure boom movements and to simulate the distributions. The evenness is assessed through the coefficient of variation (CV) and the percentage of area correctly sprayed.
To isolate and identify alkane-degrading bacteria from deep-sea superficial sediments sampled at a north-western Mediterranean station. Sediments from the water/sediment interface at a 2400 m depth ...were sampled with a multicorer at the ANTARES site off the French Mediterranean coast and were promptly enriched with Maya crude oil as the sole source of carbon and energy. Alkane-degrading bacteria belonging to the genera Alcanivorax, Pseudomonas, Marinobacter, Rhodococcus and Clavibacter-like were isolated, indicating that the same groups were potentially involved in hydrocarbon biodegradation in deep sea as in coastal waters. These results confirm that members of Alcanivorax are important obligate alkane degraders in deep-sea environments and coexist with other degrading bacteria inhabiting the deep-subsurface sediment of the Mediterranean. The results suggest that the isolates obtained have potential applications in bioremediation strategies in deep-sea environments and highlight the need to identify specific piezophilic hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria (HCB) from these environments.
Fast Tracking in Liver Transplantation has been around for the past 25 years, although no substantial advancement, in the form of a comprehensive protocol, had been readily available. Few centers had ...embraced this goal, so before we started our program, a little over a decade ago, we adopted most of these ideas into a comprehensive pathway that would swiftly carry our patients from the preoperative stage through a safe home discharge. From day one, we have used this Fast Track pathway and applied it prospectively to every single patient undergoing liver transplantation at our institution, monitoring the results periodically. We now report our results after 10 years.
All liver transplants performed at our center for the first 10 years since the start of the program (September 2012–September 2022) were included. Our standard protocol included balanced general anesthesia, fluid restriction, avoidance of transfusions, inferior vena cava preservation with temporary porto-caval shunt and thromboelastography. Standard immunosuppression administered included steroids, tacrolimus (delayed in the setting of renal impairment, with basiliximab induction added) and mycophenolate mofetil. Tacrolimus dosing was adjusted using a Bayesian estimation methodology. Oral intake and ambulation were started early.
385 transplants were performed in 367 patients (287♂/80♀) over 120 months, mean age 57.4±9.5 years, raw MELD score 15.4±8.1. Predominant etiologies were alcohol (n=217) and HCV (n=108), with hepatocellular carcinoma present in 197 (53.7%). Eighteen patients underwent combined liver-and-kidney transplants. Mean operating time was 313±66 min with cold ischemia times of 281±85 min. Fifty-nine patients (15.3%) were transfused in the OR (2.3±1.1 units of PRBC). Extubation was immediate (< 30 min) in 365 cases (94.8%). Median ICU length of stay was 12.6 h, and median post-transplant hospital stay was 4 days (2–97) with 55 patients (15.8%) discharged home by the 2nd day, 141 (40.5%) by the 3rd day and 203 (58.3%) by the 4th day, which defined our Fast-Track group. The overall thirty-day-readmission rate was (34.5%), which became significantly lower (27.6% vs 44.1%, p=0.0014) in the Fast-Track group when compared to the regular discharge group. Patient survival was 87.6% at 1 year and 79.7% at 5 years.
Fast-Tracking of Liver Transplant patients is very feasible and can be applied as the standard of care.
Aquaculture impacts on wild populations of fish have been considered principally due to farm escapes. The Bluefish Pomatomus saltatrix, which exhibits two distinct genetic units in the Mediterranean ...Sea, is a voracious predator and is attracted to aquaculture cages to prey on farmed fish, particularly Gilthead Seabream Sparus aurata and European Sea Bass Dicentrarchus labrax. We compared the genetic diversity of adult Bluefish caught inside one aquaculture farm located in Spanish waters of the western Mediterranean Sea with reference individuals of East and West Mediterranean stocks from the open sea. Bluefish were genetically assigned to their putative origin using seven microsatellite loci and mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I as molecular markers. As expected, most of the individuals caught from inside the fish farm cages were assigned to the local genetic population. However, between 7.14% and 11.9% of individuals were assigned to the distant and different genetic unit inhabiting Turkish waters, the East Mediterranean stock. The genetic membership of those individuals revealed some degree of interbreeding between the East and West Mediterranean Bluefish stocks. All results suggest that aquaculture acts as an attractor for Bluefish and could affect genetic diversity as well as phylogeography of this fish and maybe other similar species that aggregate around marine fish farms.
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