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A Elefante

Publications and source records attributed to A Elefante.

10 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Long-term stability of a patient-convenient 1 mg/ml suspension of tacrolimus for accurate maintenance of stable therapeutic levels.

Tacrolimus (Prograf, FK506, Fujisawa Healthcare) is a widely used immunosuppressive agent that is used both for the prevention and treatment of solid organ transplant rejection as well as for the prevention and treatment of graft-versus-host disease after allogeneic blood and marrow transplant. Oral preparations of tacrolimus are commercially available in 0.5, 1 and 5 mg gelatin capsules. Previously, only a 0.5 mg/ml oral suspension has been demonstrated to be stable for use in pediatric patients. On our bone marrow transplant service, we found that using this concentration of tacrolimus led to confusion, with patients and their caregivers confusing milligrams and milliliters, thus increasing errors with this formulation. We postulated that a 1 mg/ml oral formulation of tacrolimus would decrease the potential for medication errors. Our findings support new stability information of approximately 4 months for an extemporaneous oral suspension of tacrolimus at a concentration of 1 mg/ml.

Administration, Oral↗
PubMed2006

Aggressive eosinophilic granuloma of the parietal bone. An immunohystochemical study of Ki-67 expression.

Solitary eosinophilic granuloma (EG) of the skull is a rare lesion, the natural history of which is still to be defined. We report a case of a 26-year-old female who presented with progressive headache and nausea accompanied by a painful firm mass in her left parietal region, which grew very rapidly during the last two weeks before admission. Computed tomography scan showed an osteolytic lesion, which on magnetic resonance imaging appeared hyperintense on both T1- and T2-weighted images, with marked and heterogeneous enhancement after gadolinium administration. Total surgical excision of the lesion was performed and histopathological diagnosis was compatible with eosinophilic granuloma. Immuno-histochemical study of Ki-67 antigen expression was also performed with a labelling index of 10%. In a review of the pertinent literature, we found one case report showing a Ki-67 labelling index of 6.2% in a patient harboring EG of the occipital bone. These two relatively high percentages of proliferative activity suggest a role of local Langerhans'cell proliferation, along with that of inflammatory response, in the aggressive clinical course and rapid expansion observed in some rare cases of solitary eosinophilic granuloma.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Stent implantation for treatment of symptomatic spontaneous cervical internal carotid artery dissecting aneurysm. A case report.

Cervical internal carotid dissections are rare. Approximately one third of the cases are associated with pseudoaneurysm. The first-choice management of cervical carotid dissecting aneurysms consists in anticoagulation or antiplatelet therapy. Surgery is typically indicated in cases of failure of conservative therapy with recurrent cerebral ischemic attacks. In recent years, stent implantation has been also employed for the management of patients with carotid dissecting aneurysms whose neurological conditions were refractory to medical treatment. In the present case we describe the treatment of a patient with a carotid dissecting aneurysm, by means of endovascular stent application and provide angiographic control 24 months after the intervention.

Carotid Artery, Internal↗
PubMed2004

Bilateral hypoplasia of the internal carotid arteries with basilar aneurysm.

We report a rare case of bilateral hypoplasia of the internal carotid arteries with an associated aneurysm of the basilar tip, studied by CT angiography, MR angiography and digital angiography. The patient became symptomatic with an episode of loss of consciousness, likely due to reduced blood perfusion. The other 20 reported cases of bilateral carotid hypoplasia (only four of which with an associated aneurysm) are reviewed. The findings of noninvasive procedures (including narrowing of the carotid canals on CT) may lead to a correct diagnosis before angiography is performed; they may also help to differentiate angiographic narrowing of the hypoplastic internal carotids from the string sign often observed in some acquired conditions.

Carotid Artery, Internal↗
PubMed2004

Hemorrhagic vascular complications of endoscopic transsphenoidal surgery.

Two hundred and fifty consecutive patients operated on by an endoscopic endonasal transsphenoidal approach were retrospectively analyzed in order to evaluate hemorrhagic vascular complications occurring during or after the surgical procedure and their appropriate management. Vascular complications of endoscopic transsphenoidal surgery are identical to those of a microsurgical transsphenoidal approach. Damage to the sphenopalatine artery and to the internal carotid artery (ICA), which are the most frequent vascular troubles, may require technical tricks because of some aspects connected to the approach itself and of the physical properties of the endoscope. Furthermore, the progress in interventional neuroradiology in the last decades offers new solutions in respect to the past, where the use of the surgical microscope was already a tremendous progress. The anatomic substrate of each complication is discussed, along with the peculiar surgical details related to it.

Carotid Artery, Internal↗
PubMed2004

An unusual case of vertebral arteriovenous fistula treated with electrodetachable coil embolization.

Vertebral arteriovenous fistulas (VAF) are rare clinical entities. Most are post-traumatic in origin, following direct injury, or iatrogenic. Treatment options include endovascular occlusion or direct surgical closure. We present a rare case of a spontaneous VAF, presenting with cervical and upper limb pain in a patient with previous chiropractic manipulations, successfully treated with electrodetachable coil embolization. While the natural history of the VAFs is still to be settled, endovascular occlusion appears to be a safe and reliable method to deal with such lesions, mainly in symptomatic cases. The use of electrically detachable coils may be considered as an effective alternative for the endovascular occlusion of these fistulas.

Arteriovenous Fistula↗
PubMed2004

Lymphoplasmacyte rich meningioma. A case report and review of the literature.

A peculiar type of meningioma with conspicious plasma-cell components is described. In accordance with the World Health Organization's Histological Typing of Tumours of the Central Nervous System, this rare clinical entity is recently designed as lymphoplasmacyte rich (LPR) meningioma. This type of meningioma is usually accompanied by prominent peripheral blood abnormalities, anemia and/or policlonal gammophaty, that disappear after surgical removal of the tumor. Actually, the origin (neoplastic or inflammatory) of this tumor is unclear; its biological behavior and clinical course are anomalous so it is considered closer to intracranial inflammatory masses rather than typical meningioma. In this paper, a new case of intracranial LPR meningioma occurring in a woman, is reported and a review the literature is made.

Anemia↗
PubMed2003

High field functional MRI.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has become the most widely used approach for studying brain functions in humans. The rapid and widespread diffusion of fMRI has been favoured by the properties this technique presents, and particularly by its sensitivity in analysing brain functional phenomena and by the lack of biological invasiveness, resulting in an unprecedented and unparalleled flexibility of use. These properties of fMRI brought the functional examination of the brain within the reach of the whole neuroscience community and have appreciably stimulated the research on the functional processes of the living brain. Among the main features of fMRI, its spatial and temporal resolution represents clear advantages compared with the other methods of functional neuroimaging. In fact, the high spatial resolution of fMRI permits to produce more precise and better localised information, and its temporal resolution provides the potential of a better understanding of neural dynamics at the level of single functional areas and of the neural constituents of functional patterns. A fundamental possibility of improving spatial and temporal resolution without excessively degrading signal-to-noise ratio consists in the use of high magnetic field intensity fMRI units. Besides, high field units make the use of more demanding fMRI paradigms, like single trial event related studies, much more compatible with the need of a solid statistical evaluation. This has notably promoted the diffusion of high field MRI units for human studies throughout the world, with very high field MRI units, up to 8 T, working in a few research centres, and a larger number of MRI units with field intensity ranging between 3 and 5 T.

Brain↗
PubMed2002

Use of spiral computerized tomography angiography in patients with cerebral aneurysm. Our experience.

BACKGROUND: The purpose is to highlight the usefulness of CT angiography (CTA) in the diagnosis and surgical treatment of cerebral aneurysms. METHODS: Thirty-one patients with subarachnoid haemorrhages were subjected to CT angiography and in those cases where this test did not reveal the aneurysm or did not supply sufficient information relating to it, subsequently a digital subtraction angiography was also performed. Each aneurysm-positive CTA was re-processed using the 3-D techniques, with the neuro-radiologist and the neuro-surgeon working in close co-operation. RESULTS: In 27 cases the CTA diagnosed an aneurysm, and in the 4 cases where no vascular malformations were revealed, also the traditional angiography did not show any pathology. In 17 out of 18 cases operated on in order to clip the aneurysm, the CTA supplied all the information needed for the surgery and it was possibile to reconstruct images similar to those of the surgical field. This led to improvement in the programming of the surgical intervention; in 1 case only was it also necessary to perform the DSA before the operation. CONCLUSIONS: CT angiography, because it is non-invasive, easy to perform, diagnostically reliable, and because the 3-D re-constructions offer the chance to create images of the possible operating field, is the first-choice test to be adopted in the treatment of subarachnoid haemorrhages, even though in some cases the use of the traditional angiography is still necessary and should be carried out whenever the CTA does not reveal vascular malformations.

Adult↗