Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to M Rossi.
A personal experiment conducted on 80 gastric carcinoma patients requiring radical surgery at the Special Surgical Pathology Institute is reported. The aim of the study was to identify and assess the factors capable of influencing prognosis e.g. sex, age, TNM, type of operation, symptoms etc and to make a comparison with data from the international literature.
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A non-competitive avidin-biotin immuno-enzymatic assay (NABA) for lysozyme is described. The assay was found to be more sensitive than a competitive assay with biotinylated lysozyme. The lower detection limit of NABA was 0.1 ng lysozyme/ml compared to 1 ng/ml for the competitive assay. The intra-assay and inter-assay coefficients of variation for NABA were 5.9 and 9.1%, respectively. The total time for NABA can be decreased (to less than 1 h) without influencing the detection limit or the analytical range. Serum lysozyme levels measured by NABA and the enzymatic assay in 32 samples showed a correlation coefficient of r = 0.97.
Toxic goitre often referred to in the literature as "autonomous" adenoma or nodule actually signifies a number of different pathologies that are characterised by autonomy and hyperfunction so that it is now thought more appropriate to call it an autonomous follicle. Clinical features and the hormone profile suggest the diagnosis which is confirmed by scintiscan with curve as well as dynamic inhibition and stimulation tests using TRH, procedures that reveal both latent hyperfunction and autonomy. The most common current therapeutic approach is surgical since this provides a complete cure while leaving the surrounding thyroid tissue undisturbed.
In this paper we describe an alteration of the c-myc oncogene present in the white blood cells and normal as well as neoplastic thyroid cells of a subject carrying a thyroid carcinoma. Restriction enzyme mapping and hybridization to human c-myc probes specific for different regions of this gene demonstrate that this subject carries, in addition to the normal one, a c-myc oncogene lacking the first exon and part of the first intron. The levels of the c-myc mRNA in thyroid cells of this subject do not show differences with respect to thyroid cells from other subjects. Taken together, these findings indicate that the deletion of the first exon of the c-myc oncogene, in itself, does not produce overtranscription of this oncogene nor hematopoietic malignancies.
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The basic features of the most common endocrine pathology, the thyroid nodule are analysed. After a brief assessment of the incidence of the condition the problem of clinical and instrumental diagnosis is tackled with the aim of demonstrating the value and possibility of sub-clinical diagnosis of micronodules. The present work aims to identify the fastest, most efficient and cheapest diagnostic procedure.
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Fourteen out-patients with chronic bronchitis (n = 5) or chronic bronchial asthma (n = 9) entered a trial devised to evaluate the effect of the combined inhalation by pressurized aerosol of fenoterol 200 micrograms + ipratropium bromide 80 micrograms three times daily in a 12-week period of treatment. On the basis of the ventilatory and clinical findings, effective bronchodilatation with clinical improvement after drug inhalation was noticed throughout the whole observation time. In detail, the behaviour either of the FEV1 values at the control days or of the daily self-monitored peak expiratory flow (PEF) data showed a constant, statistically significant increase in the post-bronchodilator values with a prompt, long-lasting and persistent effect over the 3-month period; self-monitored PEF rates were particularly consistent with this result. No side-effects were seen in any cases, including the 5 patients who needed extra use of inhalers. The findings of the trial suggest that the combined inhalation of fenoterol and ipratropium bromide may play an important role in long-term therapy of many patients with chronic bronchitis or chronic bronchial asthma.
Patients suffering from myeloproliferative diseases are frequently susceptible to infection. We studied granulocyte function and cytogenetics in 32 patients with different myeloproliferative syndromes. In vivo granulocyte function was studied in 10 patients using the skin window technique. Our data demonstrate a deficit in chemotaxis (p less than 0.001) which does not seem to correlate with any specific chromosomal anomaly. Patients showing a deficit in myeloperoxidase activity, phagocytosis, O2- production or NBT reduction also had a much lower median survival with respect to other patients treated with the same protocol but without these deficits (p less than 0.01). By conducting granulocyte function studies at diagnosis one may therefore isolate those patients with an increased risk of contracting infections and a decreased probability of complete remission.
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Protein 4.1, a principal component of the erythrocyte membrane skeleton, is thought to be important in regulating membrane stability through its interaction with spectrin and actin. A key role for protein 4.1 has been indicated in studies in which deficiency of this protein was shown to result in marked instability of the membrane. In order to obtain direct evidence for the functional role of protein 4.1, we reconstituted protein 4.1-deficient membranes with purified protein 4.1 and showed restoration of membrane stability. Erythrocyte membranes totally and partially deficient in protein 4.1 were reconstituted by exchange hemolysis with various concentrations of purified protein 4.1, and their stability measured using an ektacytometer. Native erythrocyte membranes totally deficient in protein 4.1 were markedly unstable, while those partially deficient had intermediate reductions in membrane stability. Reconstitution with increasing concentrations of purified protein 4.1 resulted in progressive restoration of membrane stability. Near-normal membrane stability could be restored to both totally and partially protein 4.1-deficient membranes. In contrast, the addition of protein 4.1 to resealed membranes did not improve membrane stability. This implies that the added protein 4.1 must have access to the cell interior in order to affect membrane stability. Furthermore, in control experiments, the addition of protein 4.1 to normal membranes did not increase their stability. Also, the addition of purified spectrin and human serum albumin during resealing did not improve stability of protein 4.1-deficient membranes. These results provide direct evidence for the crucial role of protein 4.1 in regulating erythrocyte membrane stability.
The correlation between expression and extent of DNA methylation of c-myc and c-abl oncogenes has been investigated in the human leukemic K-562 cell line before and after 5-azacytidine-mediated erythroid induction. RNA accumulation was analyzed by cytoplasmic dot hybridization and DNA methylation by using HpaII and MspI endonucleases, which differently cleave the CCGG sequence depending on cytosine methylation. Both the oncogenes are expressed in uninduced cells; however, whereas the c-myc expression does not change following 5-azacytidine treatment, the c-abl expression sharply decreases. The HpaII pattern shows that the c-myc DNA region is undermethylated and that the c-abl gene is hypermethylated both before and after the erythroid induction. Nevertheless, in both the genes 5-azacytidine produces variations in the MspI pattern compatible with mCmCGG to CmCGG demethylations.
The authors review the nature, biological evolution, diagnosis and treatment of carotid body tumors both on the basis of data reported in the literature and in the light of their own experience with a population of 11 carotid body chemodectomas. All patients (except one) were subjected to total resection of the neoplasm. In one case, surgery was confined to a partial resection. Operative mortality was nil, and complications consisted in one case of Claude-Bernard-Horner syndrome, one lesion of the XII cranial nerve and one lesion of the X cranial nerve. Follow-up of the patients (min. 6 months, max. 10 years) has shown no recurrences or metastases.