0000000000677126
AUTHOR
G Gargano
BRCA1 missense variants of uncertain clinical significance in unaffected and breast/ovarian cancer of the Sicilian population.
Bovine lactoferrin prevents invasive fungal infections in very low birth weight infants: a randomized controlled trial.
Background: Lactoferrin is a mammalian milk glycoprotein involved in innate immunity. Recent data show that bovine lactoferrin (bLF) prevents late-onset sepsis in preterm very low birth weight (VLBW) neonates. Methods: This is a secondary analysis of data from a multicenter randomized controlled trial where preterm VLBW neonates randomly received bLF (100 mg/day; group A1), bLF + Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (106 colony-forming units per day; group A2), or placebo (group B) for 6 weeks. Here we analyze the incidence rates of fungal colonization, invasive fungal infection (IFI), and rate of progression from colonization to infection in all groups. Results: This study included 472 neonates who…
Distributed medical images analysis on a Grid infrastructure
In this paper medical applications on a Grid infrastructure, the MAGIC-5 Project, are presented and discussed. MAGIC-5 aims at developing Computer Aided Detection (CADe) software for the analysis of medical images on distributed databases by means of GRID Services. The use of automated systems for analyzing medical images improves radiologists’ performance; in addition, it could be of paramount importance in screening programs, due to the huge amount of data to check and the cost of related manpower. The need for acquiring and analyzing data stored in different locations requires the use of Grid Services for the management of distributed computing resources and data. Grid technologies allow…
Work environment, volume of activity and staffing in neonatal intensive care units in Italy: results of the SONAR-nurse study
Background Neonatal units’ volume of activity, and other quantitative and qualitative variables, such as staffing, workload, work environment, care organization and geographical location, may influence the outcome of high risk newborns. Data about the distribution of these variables and their relationships among Italian neonatal units are lacking. Methods Between March 2010-April 2011, 63 neonatal intensive care units adhering to the Italian Neonatal Network participated in the SONAR Nurse study. Their main features and work environment were investigated by questionnaires compiled by the chief and by physicians and nurses of each unit. Twelve cross-sectional monthly-repeated surveys on diff…
Q356R and S1512I are BRCA1 variants that may be associated with breast cancer in a Sicilian family.
A completely automated CAD system for mass detection in a large mammographic database.
Mass localization plays a crucial role in computer-aided detection (CAD) systems for the classification of suspicious regions in mammograms. In this article we present a completely automated classification system for the detection of masses in digitized mammographic images. The tool system we discuss consists in three processing levels: (a) Image segmentation for the localization of regions of interest (ROIs). This step relies on an iterative dynamical threshold algorithm able to select iso-intensity closed contours around gray level maxima of the mammogram. (b) ROI characterization by means of textural features computed from the gray tone spatial dependence matrix (GTSDM), containing secon…