Policlinico Universitario di Catania

From Reactive Oxygen Species to Organelle Stress and Innate Immunity in Dry Eye Disease

Dry eye disease (DED) is a complex, multifactorial condition in which oxidative stress is increasingly recognized as a recurrent feature of ocular-surface dysfunction and as a signaling hub linking environmental stress, organelle dysfunction, innate immunity, and regulated cell d...

Safety and Efficacy of Acute Normovolemic Hemodilution in Female Patients

Importance Female patients undergoing cardiac surgery have a higher transfusion burden, yet they remain underrepresented in randomized clinical trials. Although the ANH trial showed no significant reduction in the proportion of patients receiving allogeneic blood transfusions wit...

Epithelioid infraligamentary uterine leiomyoma in an adolescent: imaging–pathology correlation and minimally invasive management

Abstract Background Epithelioid uterine leiomyoma is an uncommon histological variant and is exceptionally rare in adolescence. Its unusual anatomical presentation may complicate preoperative characterization, while definitive diagnosis relies on histopathological evaluation, inc...

Conditional vaccine performance benchmarks for reducing MRSA burden in an idealised national transmission model for Italy

Vaccine development against antimicrobial-resistant pathogens benefits from quantitative benchmarks, but national burden estimates cannot identify all conditions required for impact. We developed a deterministic compartmental model of methicillin-susceptible and methicillin-resis...

Beta-Blocker Therapy After Acute Myocardial Infarction

Historically, beta-blockers have long represented a cornerstone of secondary prevention after acute myocardial infarction (AMI). However, the transition to the modern era of early reperfusion and potent pharmacotherapy has questioned their universal efficacy, particularly in pati...

Botulinum Toxin for Temporomandibular Disorder: Current Evidence, Clinical Applications, and Future Perspectives

Temporomandibular disorders (TMDs) are heterogeneous musculoskeletal conditions frequently characterized by pain, impaired mandibular function, and reduced quality of life. Botulinum neurotoxin type A (BoNT-A) has emerged as a potential therapeutic option, particularly for persis...

Phenotype-based appropriateness of IGM-enriched polyclonal immunoglobulin use in critical illness: report of an expert consensus

Sepsis and septic shock result from a dysregulated host response to infection, encompassing both hyperinflammatory and immunosuppressed phenotypes. Although immunomodulatory adjunctive therapies have been extensively investigated over the past decades, none have demonstrated cons...

A survey on the institutional practices of the use of isavuconazole in onco-hematological children, on behalf of the Infectious Working Group of AIEOP

Isavuconazole is a broad-spectrum antifungal agent approved for the treatment of invasive fungal infections (IFIs) in adults and, recently, in pediatric patients aged 1 year and older. Use in the pediatric setting remains limited, but available data indicate generally favorable s...

To Tap or Not to Tap? A Still Unanswered Question for Lumbar Puncture and Treatment Strategies in Asymptomatic Pediatric Papilledema: A Narrative Review

Papilledema is a potentially vision-threatening finding in children, often diagnosed during routine ophthalmological evaluation in asymptomatic subjects, which requires prompt diagnostic evaluation to exclude intracranial pathology. The available literature suggests that a signif...

Surgical outcomes for proximal femoral fractures: a longitudinal analysis pre- and post-pandemic

Proximal femoral fractures are a major cause of disability in older adults and require timely surgical treatment. This study aimed to compare perioperative and clinical outcomes of elderly patients with proximal femoral fractures treated during the pre-COVID-19 (2018–2019), COVID...

Virologic, Lipid, Renal and Hepatic Laboratory Outcomes After Switching to Doravirine/Lamivudine/Tenofovir Disoproxil Fumarate in Treatment-Experienced People with HIV: Real-World Evidence from the SHINe-SHIC Cohort

Background/Objectives: Doravirine/lamivudine/tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (DOR/3TC/TDF) is used as a switch regimen in treatment-experienced people with HIV (PWH), particularly when simplification, lipid improvement, or avoidance of interaction-prone regimens is needed. We evalu...

L-AmB as the Real First-Line Therapy for Paediatric Visceral Leishmaniasis: A Multicentre Retrospective Study from an Endemic Area of Southern Italy

Background/Objectives: visceral leishmaniasis (VL) remains an important zoonotic disease in endemic Mediterranean regions, where children represent one of the populations at highest risk of developing symptomatic infection. Although pentavalent antimonials have historically been...

In‐Vivo Frame Dynamicity of Self‐Expanding Transcatheter Aortic Valves

BACKGROUND: Due to nitinol stent properties, self-expanding transcatheter heart valves (THVs) have the potential to adapt their frames to native annular dimension excursions during the cardiac cycle and therefore to maintain the physiological relevance of this behaviour. AIMS: To...

Long-Duration Response to Levodopa in Patients with Early Parkinson’s Disease: Pharmacodynamics, Neuroplasticity, and Clinical Implications

Background: The most effective pharmacological treatment for Parkinson’s disease (PD) remains levodopa, whose responsiveness is distinguished into two temporally and mechanistically distinct components: the short-duration response (SDR), which lasts hours, closely paralleling dru...

Cancer in systemic sclerosis: clinical associations and prognostic impact from the EUSTAR registry

BACKGROUND: Cancer represents a major cause of mortality in systemic sclerosis (SSc). Established risk factors are limited to specific subsets, particularly early diffuse anti-RNA polymerase III (POLR3)-positive disease, needing further exploration. METHODS: We performed a nested...

Real‐world outcomes of venetoclax plus hypomethylating agents in unfit acute myeloid leukaemia: Results of the GIMEMA AML2320 trial

Summary Venetoclax (VEN) plus hypomethylating agents (HMAs) represents the standard of care for newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) patients unfit for intensive chemotherapy, but prospective real‐world observational data outside randomized clinical trials remain limited...

Prolonged indolent clinical course in a high-risk chronic phase-CML patient without cytogenetic or molecular response: a case challenging established response paradigms

Chronic-phase chronic myeloid leukemia (CP-CML) is currently treated with tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), and the early achievement of cytogenetic and molecular milestones is strongly associated with improved clinical outcomes. Here, we describe the case of a 55-year-old woman...

Sphereplasty with 3D porous titanium microspheres for thoracolumbar vertebral compression fractures: analysis of clinical efficacy and safety profile of a novel technique

PURPOSE: Porous Titanium Microspheres (PTM)-based Sphereplasty has been recently proposed as a novel vertebral augmentation technique for thoracolumbar Vertebral Compression Fractures (VCFs), potentially promoting bony fusion and reducing long-term complications. This study aims...