Non-hematopoietic neoplastic and pseudoneoplastic lesions of the spleen

The spleen can be affected by several different non-hematopoietic neoplasms as well as pseudoneoplastic lesions. Generally such conditions affect asymptomatic adults and are detected only as incidental findings; in a minority of the cases vague, unspecific symptoms including abdominal discomfort can occur. Most of these conditions present as a “solitary splenic mass” and have been traditionally diagnosed on partial or total splenectomy, which also represents the most common therapeutic strategy; however, the increasing use of splenic needle biopsies for such lesions creates new diagnostic challenges for pathologists. Splenic cysts (including true cysts, pseudocysts and parasitic cysts) and hamartomas are common benign proliferations which generally pose little problems in their identification. More challenging is the diagnostic workup of “spindle cell and inflammatory rich” lesions of the spleen, whose correct identification is crucial. Indeed, some of these are considered reactive (such as sclerosing angiomatoid nodular transformation of the spleen), whilst others are clonal in nature, the main example being represented by the so called “inflammatory pseudotumour- like follicular/fibroblastic dendritic cell sarcoma”. A further degree of complexity is represented by the detection of the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), which is invariably present in inflammatory pseudotumour- like follicular/fibroblastic dendritic cell sarcoma, but also in other proliferations including the rare “EBV- related smooth muscle tumor of the spleen”. Finally, the spleen can host rare dendritic/reticulum cell sarcomas and metastases from extrasplenic malignancies. The current review aims at highlighting the main histologic features of non-hematopoietic and non-vascular neoplasms as well as pseudoneoplastic lesions of the spleen.     

Arterio-venous gradient of endothelial progenitor cells across renal artery stenosis

A role for circulating progenitor cells have been recently demonstrated in many pathological conditions. Endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) localize at sites of ischemia and stimulate neovasculogenesis. This small study was carried out to assess whether selective blood sampling during renal angiography could demonstrate an arterio-venous gradient of EPCs in 5 patients with renal artery stenosis. Surprisingly, we found that EPCs were more abundant in venous than in arterial blood, suggesting that the kidney subjected to chronic ischemia may become a source rather than a target of EPCs.     

Europium stearate additives delay oxidation of UHMWPE for orthopaedic applications: a pilot study

Background  

Ultrahigh-molecular-weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) is used as an articulating surface in prosthetic devices. Its failure under various mechanisms after oxidation is of utmost concern. Free radicals formed during the sterilization process using high-energy irradiation result in oxidation. Europium, an element of the lanthanide family, has a unique electron configuration with an unusual lack of preference for directional bonding and notable bonding to oxygen. Because of this, it currently is used in studies for stabilization of polymers such as polyvinyl chloride.     

Iloprost use and medical management of systemic sclerosis-related vasculopathy in Italian tertiary referral centers: results from the PROSIT study

Clinical and Experimental Medicine - Vasculopathy is a crucial feature of systemic sclerosis (SSc), and Raynaud’s phenomenon (RP) and digital ulcers (DU) have a deep impact on the quality of...     

Role of Aromatic Herbs and Spices in Salty Perception of Patients with Hyposmia

Herbs and spices represent a possibility for the improvement of anosmia and ageusia. In this work we evaluated the role of Mediterranean aromatic herbs and spices in the salty taste perception of patients with hyposmia compared to healthy controls. To this goal, the salty taste perception in response to pure salt and different types of commercial flavored sea salt was assessed in patients with hyposmia, with or without a post-acute coronavirus syndrome, and healthy controls. Myrtle berries and leaves, a mixture of Mediterranean herbs and plants such as helichrysum, rosemary, liquorice, fennel seeds and myrtle leaves, oranges and saffron were used as salt flavoring ingredients. Differences in gustatory perception between 57 patients with hyposmia and 91 controls were evaluated considering the rate of the gustatory dimensions of pleasantness, intensity, and familiarity, using a 7-point hedonic Likert-type scale. At a dose of 0.04 g/mL, saline solutions of flavored salts, with an average 15% less NaCl, were perceived by patients with hyposmia as equally intense but less familiar than pure salt solution, with similar scores in the pleasantness dimension. Our study highlighted the central role of Mediterranean aromatic plants in the enhancement of salty perception in patients with hyposmia.     

Exploring the role of artificial intelligence in the study of fetal heart

The International Journal of Cardiovascular Imaging -     

Strategies of multi-objective optimization in drug discovery and development

Introduction: Drug discovery and development is a typical multi-objective problem and its successes or failures depend on the simultaneous control of numerous, often conflicting, molecular and pharmacological properties. Multi-objective optimization strategies represent a new approach to capture the occurrence of varying optimal solutions based on trade-offs among the objectives taken into account. In view of this, multi-objective optimization aims to discover a set of satisfactory compromises that may in turn be used to find the global optimal solution by optimizing numerous dependent properties simultaneously. Areas covered: The authors review the potential of multi-objective strategies in a number of fields including: drug library design; substructure mining; the derivation of quantitative structure-activity relationship models; ranking of docking poses. The authors also discuss the potential of multi-objective strategies in controlling competing properties for absorption, distribution, metabolism and elimination/toxicity optimization. Expert opinion: It is very clear to those who work in drug discovery and development that the success of rational drug design is largely dependent on the control of a number of, often conflicting, objectives. Therefore, multi-objective optimization methods, which have recently been introduced to the field of molecular discovery, represent the ultimate frontier in chemoinformatics. The widespread use of these multi-objective techniques has provided new opportunities in medicinal chemistry as seen through its use in a number of applications for chemoinformatics both within academia and the pharmaceutical industry.