0000000000703199
AUTHOR
Vieni S.
PULMONARY EMBOLISM IN AN EMERGENCY CARE UNIT: EVALUATION OF PREDICTIVE FACTORS FROM CLINICAL HISTORY AND PHYSICAL EXAM
Objective: An early diagnosis of pulmonary embolism (PE) improves outcome. Therefore, PE should be diagnosed in Emergency Care Units (ECU) at admission. Clinical algorithms support the clinician in this task, although performance is biased by differences in risk factors prevalent in different populations. The clinical conditions predictive of PE were evaluated in subjects from Southern Italy accessing ECU for dyspnea/chest pain.Methods: Retrospective clinical data were obtained by electronic retrieving from a hospital database. Data from 8177 patients (age 18-90 years, 54 with PE) were collected from years 2007-2013.Results: Previous history of PE, thrombosis and/or phlebitis, rheumatic dis…
BRCA1/2 variants of unknown significance in hereditary breast and ovarian cancer (HBOC) syndrome: Looking for the hidden meaning
Hereditary breast and ovarian cancer syndrome is caused by germline mutations in BRCA1/2 genes. These genes are very large and their mutations are heterogeneous and scattered throughout the coding sequence. In addition to the above-mentioned mutations, variants of uncertain/unknown significance (VUSs) have been identified in BRCA genes, which make more difficult the clinical management of the patient and risk assessment. In the last decades, several laboratories have developed different databases that contain more than 2000 variants for the two genes and integrated strategies which include multifactorial prediction models based on direct and indirect genetic evidence, to classify the VUSs a…
Evoluzione storica del linfonodo sentinella
The sentinel node is the first lymph node reached by metastasising cells from a primary tumour. Numerous studies have confirmed and demonstrated the reliability of the sentinel node biopsy hypothesis, on account of the high identification rate and overall accuracy of dye-guided and radio-guided procedures. It is remarkable that the concept of lymphatic mapping was not introduced until the end of the twentieth century. The development of the dynamic technique of intraoperative lymphatic mapping in the 1990s resulted in general acceptance of the sentinel node theory. The current literature suggests that sentinel node biopsy may eventually replace axillary dissection as the nodal staging proce…