Vanadium compounds can exert anticancer effects, partly due to inhibition of tyrosine phosphatases. Here, we report the effect of N,N'-ethylenebis (pyridoxylideneiminato) vanadium (IV) complex (Pyr2 enV(IV)), that induced 93% and 57% of cell mortality in A375 (human melanoma) and A549 (human lung carcinoma) cells, respectively; the mortality was <24% in other cancer cell lines and in human normal epidermal keratinocytes, lung cells and peripheral blood mononuclear cells. The mechanism of Pyr2 enV(IV) effect relied on apoptosis induction; this was triggered by ROS increase, followed by mitochondrial membrane depolarization. Indeed, the addition of N-acetyl cysteine to cell cultures abated Pyr2 enV(IV)-induced apoptosis. These results disclose the pro-apoptotic activity of Pyr2 enV(IV) and its mechanism, relying on intracellular ROS increase.

Twenty four patients with acute infective exacerbations of chronic bronchitis received amoxycillin alone or in combination with erdosteine (a mucolytic agent) for a week in a double blind, placebo controlled study. Clinical assessment scores, body temperature, serum and sputum amoxycillin concentrations, and sputum culture results were recorded in each group. Erdosteine significantly increased antibiotic concentrations in sputum but not in serum. The combined treatment also caused a more rapid decrease in sputum viscosity and in body temperature and faster sterilisation of the sputum. These results show that erdosteine increases amoxycillin concentration in sputum in patients with acute exacerbations of chronic bronchitis. This effect may be due to a reduction in the viscosity of the bronchial secretions produced by erdosteine.

Nowadays, the application of a PAT (Pump as Turbine) has been developed in several applications as pressure dropping valve. Generally, pump manufacturers do not provide the characteristic curves of their pump working as turbine and researchers have the objective of build a model to predict the turbine operation of pumps for energy recovery schemes. This paper shows a methodology based on a mathematical model of a centrifugal pump used as a PAT in an urban hydraulic network, to solve this kind of problem. The model was built up, starting from the real geometry, with a commercial tridimensional code, which is particularly suitable to simulate pumps and valves. The aim of this paper isthe investigation on the possibility to use a simulation methodologyto obtain the inverse characteristic of a commercial centrifugal pump. First, the model results were compared with the data declared by the pump manufacturer and after it was used to obtain the inverse characteristic (PAT mode). Furthermore, an experimental test bench was used to obtain the reverse mode pump characteristic, in terms of flowrate/ head. In both cases, the simulation model showed good accuracy, there is a low difference between simulated results and manufacturer/experimental data. The model results, which represents the first step of this activity, revealed that it is possibleto obtain the pump characteristic in reverse mode, which is not declared in the commercial pump datasheet

Background Biologics have demonstrated efficacy in PsA in randomized clinical trials. More evidence is needed on their effectiveness under real clinical practice conditions. The aim of the present work is to provide real-world evidence of the effectiveness of biologics for PsA in the daily clinical practice. Methods CHRONOS was a multicenter, non-interventional, cohort study conducted in 20 Italian hospital rheumatology clinics. Results 399 patients were eligible (56.9% females, mean (SD) age: 52.4 (11.6) years). The mean (SD) duration of PsA and psoriasis was 7.2 (6.9) and 15.3 (12.2) years, respectively. The mean (SD) duration of the biologic treatment under analysis was 18.6 (6.5) months. The most frequently prescribed biologic was secukinumab (40.4%), followed by adalimumab (17.8%) and etanercept (16.5%). The proportion of overall responders according to EULAR DAS28 criteria was 71.8% (95% CI: 66.7–76.8%) out of 308 patients at 6 months and 68.0% (95% CI: 62.7–73.3%) out of 297 patients at 1 year. Overall, ACR20/50/70 responses at 6 months were 41.2% (80/194), 29.4% (57/194), 17.1% (34/199) and at 1-year were 34.9% (66/189), 26.7% (51/191), 18.4% (36/196), respectively. Secondary outcome measures improved rapidly already at 6 months: mean (SD) PASI, available for 87 patients, decreased from 3.2 (5.1) to 0.6 (1.3), the proportion of patients with dactylitis from 23.6% (35/148) to 3.5% (5/142) and those with enthesitis from 33.3% (49/147) to 9.0% (12/133). Conclusions The CHRONOS study provides real-world evidence of the effectiveness of biologics in PsA in the Italian rheumatological practice, confirming the efficacy reported in RCTs across various outcome measures.

No abstract