Trotula de Ruggiero: The Magistra mulier sapiens and her medical dermatology treatises

Trotula de Ruggiero is supposed to be one of the first female physician of the history, or at least the first who practiced, taught, and wrote medical texts inside the illustrious medieval Medical School of Salerno around the XI‐XII centuries. Here we retrace the steps of her fascinating history from historical cues to legendary anecdotes, through the analysis of the medical texts which were ascribed to her in the Middle Ages and that were very popular around Europe for several centuries, prevalently dealing with all the aspects of women's medical problems, with a focus on dermatology, cosmetic science, and obstetrics/gynecology.     

Prospective Comparison of Toxicity and Cosmetic Outcome After Accelerated Partial Breast Irradiation With Conformal External Beam Radiotherapy or Single-Entry Multilumen Intracavitary Brachytherapy

Purpose

This study aimed to prospectively characterize toxicity and cosmesis after accelerated partial breast irradiation (APBI) with 3-dimensional conformal radiation therapy (CRT) or single-entry, multilumen, intracavitary brachytherapy.

Effect of Urine Adulterants on Commercial Drug Abuse Screening Test Strip Results

Immunochromatographic strips for urine drug screening tests (UDSTs) are common and very suitable for drug abuse monitoring, but are also highly susceptible to adulterants kept in the household, which can significantly alter test results. The aim of this study was to see how some of these common adulterants affect UDST results in practice and whether they can be detected by sample validity tests with pH and URIT 11G test strips. To this end we added household chemicals (acids, alkalis, oxidizing agents, surfactants, and miscellaneous substances) to urine samples positive for amphetamine, 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), tetrahydrocannabinol, heroin, cocaine, or benzodiazepines (diazepam or alprazolam) and tested them with one-component immunochromatographic UDST strips. The UDST for cocaine resisted adulteration the most, while the cannabis test produced the most false negative results. The most potent adulterant that barely changed the physiological properties of urine specimens and therefore escaped adulteration detection was vinegar. Besides lemon juice, it produced the most false negative test results. In conclusion, some urine adulterants, such as vinegar, could pass urine specimen validity test and remain undetected by laboratory testing. Our findings raise concern about this issue of preventing urine tampering and call for better control at sampling, privacy concerns notwithstanding, and better sample validity tests.Key words: false negative, household chemicals, immunochromatographic assay, lemon juice, URIT 11G, vinegar     

uPAR Controls Vasculogenic Mimicry Ability Expressed by Drug-Resistant Melanoma Cells

Malignant melanoma is a highly aggressive skin cancer characterized by an elevated grade of tumor cell plasticity. Such plasticity allows adaptation of melanoma cells to different hostile conditions and guarantees tumor survival and disease progression, including aggressive features such as drug resistance. Indeed, almost 50% of melanoma rapidly develop resistance to the BRAFV600E inhibitor vemurafenib, with fast tumor dissemination, a devastating consequence for patients’ outcomes. Vasculogenic mimicry (VM), the ability of cancer cells to organize themselves in perfused vascular-like channels, might sustain tumor spread by providing vemurafenibresistant cancer cells with supplementary ways to enter into circulation and disseminate. Thus, this research aims to determine if vemurafenib resistance goes with the acquisition of VM ability by aggressive melanoma cells, and identify a driving molecule for both vemurafenib resistance and VM. We used two independent experimental models of drug-resistant melanoma cells, the first one represented by a chronic adaptation of melanoma cells to extracellular acidosis, known to drive a particularly aggressive and vemurafenib-resistant phenotype, the second one generated with chronic vemurafenib exposure. By performing in vitro tube formation assay and evaluating the expression levels of the VM markers EphA2 and VE-cadherin by Western blotting and flow cytometer analyses, we demonstrated that vemurafenib-resistant cells obtained by both models are characterized by an increased ability to perform VM. Moreover, by exploiting the CRISPR-Cas9 technique and using the urokinase plasminogen activator receptor (uPAR) inhibitor M25, we identified uPAR as a driver of VM expressed by vemurafenib-resistant melanoma cells. Thus, uPAR targeting may be successfully leveraged as a new complementary therapy to inhibit VM in drug-resistant melanoma patients, to counteract the rapid progression and dissemination of the disease.     

TiO2 Nanosols Applied Directly on Textiles Using Different Purification Treatments

Self-cleaning applications using TiO₂ coatings on various supporting media have been attracting increasing interest in recent years. This work discusses the issue of self-cleaning textile production on an industrial scale. A method for producing self-cleaning textiles starting from a commercial colloidal nanosuspension (nanosol) of TiO₂ is described. Three different treatments were developed for purifying and neutralizing the commercial TiO₂ nanosol: washing by ultrafiltration; purifying with an anion exchange resin; and neutralizing in an aqueous solution of ammonium bicarbonate. The different purified TiO₂ nanosols were characterized in terms of particle size distribution (using dynamic light scattering), electrical conductivity, and ζ potential (using electrophoretic light scattering). The TiO₂-coated textiles’ functional properties were judged on their photodegradation of rhodamine B (RhB), used as a stain model. The photocatalytic performance of the differently treated TiO₂-coated textiles was compared, revealing the advantages of purification with an anion exchange resin. The study demonstrated the feasibility of applying commercial TiO₂ nanosol directly on textile surfaces, overcoming problems of existing methods that limit the industrial scalability of the process.