Annali dell'Istituto superiore di sanita
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Ann. Ist. Super. Sanita · Apr 2016
Sex And Gender Equity in Research (SAGER): reporting guidelines as a framework of innovation for an equitable approach to gender medicine. Commentary.
Sex and gender are important determinants of health and influence research findings in a variety of ways, yet they are often overlooked and underreported. This oversight limits the generalizability of research findings and their applicability to clinical practice. ⋯ Such a framework is represented by the Sex And Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) guidelines, developed by the European Association of Science Editors (EASE) to encourage a more systematic approach to the reporting of sex and gender in research across disciplines. The paper includes the rationale and basic principles of the SAGER guidelines.
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Ann. Ist. Super. Sanita · Jan 2016
A study of human behavior simulation in architectural design for healthcare facilities.
Current tools and methods in architectural design do not allow predicting and evaluating how people will use designed environments before their actual realization. ⋯ The simulation shows how use patterns are influenced by the social and physical context in which actors are situated, and demonstrates the significance of the proposed method of evaluating hospital designs before construction. The system allows simulating use patterns with different degrees of complexity, and enables architects to ask new types of questions related to the interactions between people and physical settings.
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Ann. Ist. Super. Sanita · Jan 2014
ReviewComa and vegetative states: state of the art and proposal of a novel approach combining existing coma scales.
Brain damage of various aetiologies can lead to different disorders of consciousness (DOC), varying from coma to vegetative, to minimally conscious states. Each state is characterised by a different degree of wakefulness, awareness, pain sensitivity and is differentially handled with respect to treatment, ethical considerations and end-oflife decisions. ⋯ A complementary approach may be constituted by a 24-hour observation of patients, for a sufficient period of days, using an ad hoc behavioural scale, further correlated with physiological and pharmacological parameters measured on patients. The method herein described might help recognising the presence of consciousness of the different DOC patients, and thus discerning a vegetative from a minimally conscious state.
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Ann. Ist. Super. Sanita · Jan 2013
ReviewThe biology of MDR1-P-glycoprotein (MDR1-Pgp) in designing functional antibody drug conjugates (ADCs): the experience of gemtuzumab ozogamicin.
The treatment of cancer remains a formidable challenge owing to the difficulties in differentiating tumor cells from healthy cells to ameliorate the disease without causing intolerable toxicity to patients. In addition, the emergence of MDR1-Pgp mediated multi-drug resistance (MDR) it is a biological phenomenon that inhibits the curative potential of chemotherapeutic treatments. One way to improve the selectivity of therapeutic molecules in tumors would be to target them on the tumor site, thereby sparing normal tissues. ⋯ Several factors may affect the efficacy and safety of immunoconjugates. These include the common issues of chemical and antibody therapeutics such as specificity, heterogeneous target antigen expression and the complex pharmacokinetics profile of conveyed antibody. Further, the delivered drug may not be sufficient for providing therapeutic benefit, since the curative cytotoxic compound may be affected by intrinsic or acquired resistance of target cells. These and other potential problems, as well as the possible ways to overcome them will be discussed in this review by examining the biological factors involved in safety and efficacy of the first in class antibody drug conjugate (ADC) gentuzumab ozogamicin. Despite this set-back, the extensive recorded data and the lessons learned from gentuzumab ozogamicin recently withdrawn from the market for safety concerns helped to pave the way for next generations of clinically promising new ADCs which are currently investigated in clinical trials and two of them, Brentuximab vedotin, and Trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1) have been recently approved for commercial distribution in US by Food and Drug Administration (FDA).