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Biomedical subjects

L Di Gregorio

Publications and source records attributed to L Di Gregorio.

18 recordsLinked to original sources

Uric acid, phosphate and oxalate stones: treatment and prophylaxis.

Medical treatment for the most commonly encountered types of renal stones is described. Nowadays treatment for uric acid stones is well-defined: alkalinizing urine is easy with drugs that are sufficiently active and well enough managed. Relapse is avoided in a high percentage of patients. Medical treatment of phosphate or calcium stones is a more open question as results are far from satisfactory compared with intra- and extra-corporeal approaches which are often minimally invasive and well accepted by both patient and urologist. Relapses are not easy to control because prophylactic measures such as changes in lifestyle and diet are never activated or because they are adopted for a brief period of time. Water therapy is examined, with the choice of water depending on the type of stone, together with drug therapy. Drugs such as citrate, with or without magnesium, and thiazides are considered excellent for curing renal stones and relapses. Although medical therapy has a limited role in many types of stones, its use is decisive in some others.

Calcium Oxalate↗

Environmental and urinary reference values as markers of exposure to hydrocarbons in urban areas.

A study using individual dosimetry to evaluate the daily inhaled dose of sixteen aromatic and aliphatic hydrocarbons in three groups of primary school children, living in three Italian towns with 50,000 inhabitants or less, (Treviglio-Lombardy; Poggibonsi-Tuscany; Valenza-Piedmont) is presented. The simultaneous use of two passive samplers (radial diffusion) for each child, for a 24 h period, determined both the indoor and indoor + outdoor environmental reference concentrations. We measured the urinary levels of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes for each child and hence determined the urinary reference values for BTEX. We also considered the possibility of using benzene in urine as a biomarker of environmental exposure of the general population to this xenobiotic. We evaluated how both the environmental and biological measures were influenced by the presence of smokers in the surveyed children's houses. For the group of children living in Poggibonsi, we considered the influence of the living area and the traffic density on environmental concentrations of benzene (indoor and indoor + outdoor).

Air Pollutants↗

Comparisons between degree of histological gastritis and DNA fingerprints, cytotoxicity and adhesivity of Helicobacter pylori from different gastric sites.

Thirty-six isolates of H. pylori from up to three gastric biopsy sites (antrum, corpus and fundus) from 13 patients in Italy with different degrees of histological gastritis were investigated. All strains were tested for motility, cytotoxicity and degree of adhesion, and were typed by analysis of ribosomal RNA gene patterns (ribopatterns). Seventeen different DNA types (ribotypes) were identified, with each patient possessing H. pylori of one or more unique types. Only two patients had identical H. pylori at three sites. Most patients had H. pylori with different ribotypes or subtypes, but nine strains were not typable. Five patients had the same strain colonizing two of the three sites and atypical strains were mostly from the antrum. A complex pattern of H. pylori colonization in the stomach of some individuals was evident and suggested multiple sources of infection. No consistent associations were detected between degree of gastritis and adherence, cytotoxicity and motility but a 2.56Kb rRNA gene fragment that had a higher frequency in strains associated with severe gastritis than mild gastritis, may provide a useful molecular marker for future pathogenicity studies.

Bacterial Adhesion↗

Cardiac toxicity of 5-fluorouracil. Report of a case of spontaneous angina.

We report a case of a patient with colon carcinoma and liver metastasis who presented chest pain after 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) administration. Clinical electrocardiographic evolution was similar to that observed in Prinzmetal's angina, and chest pain promptly resolved with nifedipine. These data suggest that coronary spasm may be the cause of cardiotoxicity due to 5-FU, and that calcium antagonists may probably be used in the prevention or treatment of 5-FU cardiotoxicity.

Angina Pectoris↗

beta-Thalassemia in Sicily: hematological and biosynthetic studies.

The degree of imbalance in beta(0)-Th and beta(+)-Th as well as the frequency of the two forms in Sicilian beta-thalassemic subjects have been studied. The hemoglobin synthesis in Rietti-Greppi-Micheli disease (RGMD) and in the beta-thalassemia trait has also been studied. In an unselected thalassemic population, about 30% have been found to be beta(0)-Th. Both groups of beta(0)-Th and beta(+)-Th showed severe imbalance with alpha/non-alpha ratio of 4.22 +/- 1.88 (SD) and 3.46 +/- 1.36, respectively. This difference was not statistically significant. In RGMD the alpha/non-alpha ratio was 2.12 +/- 0.36 while in the beta thalassemia trait it was 1.76 +/- 0.35.

Child↗