Hippokratia
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Aim of our study was to evaluate degree of genetic homozygosity in male and female gender of spina bifida (SB) occulta and SB aperta patients. ⋯ There is increased recessive homozygosity in tested female SB occulta and female SB aperta individuals versus SB male participants and significantly increased recessive homozygosity in female groups of SB patients versus control female group. These findings could lead to the possible assumption that different genes in different degree might be expressed in SB occulta and SB aperta patients.
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Extra skeletal Ewing Sarcoma (EES) is a rare entity which predominantly occurs in adolescents and young adults. It usually arises from the soft tissues of the trunk or the extremities. We present a case of EES arising from the left visceral pleura in a 21 year old female patient who presented to the emergency room of our institution with fever, productive cough and sternal pain radiating to the back for the last 3 days. ⋯ The mass was resected and the histological examination revealed Extra skeletal Ewing Sarcoma (EES) of the visceral pleura without involvement of the adjacent lung. Secondary multiple nodules at the lateral wall of the pleura were also noticed and so postoperative multiagent chemotherapy was performed. EES should be considered in the differential diagnosis of any patient, especially adolescents or young adults, with a soft tissue mass of the trunk or the extremities.
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It is generally accepted that the destination of the immune system is not only to discriminate between self and non-self but also to mount responses against non-self. During the last decades, it became evident that weak self-reactivity is a necessary condition for immune homeostasis. Natural self reactivity and the internal image created by autoantibodies, participate greatly to the maintenance of homeostasis. ⋯ The immune system takes in account image information from the continuous screening of the antigenic status and compares between presented state and the desired (optimal) one. Substantial and prolonged deviations from the optimal state, triggers the induction of compensatory and reparative processes, aiming to restore molecular and functional homeostasis. So, natural autoimmunity through the ability of natural a-Abs to induce mechanisms of natural and acquired immunity, aims to prevent pathogenic processes and maintain or restore health status.
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Inguinal hernia is a very common problem. Surgical repair is the current approach, whereas asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic hernias may be good candidate for watchful waiting. Prophylactic antibiotics can be used in centers with high rate of wound infection. ⋯ Mesh repairs are superior to "nonmesh" tissue-suture repairs. Lichtenstein repair and endoscopic/laparoscopic techniques have similar efficacy. Standard polypropylene mesh is still the choice, whereas use of partially absorbable lightweight meshes seems to have some advantages.
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Diabetic nephropathy is a serious, long-term complication of diabetes and the leading cause of end-stage renal disease throughout the world. Although this disease is progressively imposing a heavier burden on the health care system, in many aspects it remains poorly understood. In addition to environmental influences, there is abundant evidence in support of genetic susceptibility to microvascular complications of nephropathy in diabetic patients. ⋯ Recent genome-wide linkage scans identified several chromosomal regions that are likely to contain diabetic nephropathy susceptibility genes, and association analyses have evaluated positional candidate genes under linkage peaks. In this review we have extracted from the literature the most promising candidate genes thought to confer susceptibility to diabetic nephropathy and mapped them to affected pathways by using network-centric analysis. Several of the top susceptibility genes have been identified as network hubs and bottlenecks suggesting that they might be important agents in the onset of diabetic nephropathy.