78 research outputs found
Oral isotretinoin for acne: a complete overview
No full textIntroduction: Acne is one of the most common and widespread skin conditions, affecting the health as much as patients' quality of life. A wide variety of treatments for acne, topical and systemics, could be prescribed, depending on its degree of severity. Isotretinoin, a derivative of retinol, has been widely used for the treatment of severe forms of acne and those forms not responding to conventional treatments. In literature, there are several studies describing its efficacy, also reporting side-effects related to the drug; therefore, this has led the scientific community to request further studies qualifying its characteristics and comparing its efficacy and safety with other classic acne treatments, as well as with different treatment regimes, in order to find the dose with the best efficacy/safety ratio. Areas covered: The aim of this article is to provide a complete overview on the use of oral isotretinoin for the treatment of acne describing the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of the drug. Expert opinion: Oral isotretinoin represents a valid therapeutic alternative in treating severe and mild-to-moderate acne lesions, also reducing scarring damage. There are no standardized protocols regarding the use of oral isotretinoin and its association with other therapies; however, the correct patient selection and a tailored treatment protocol according to acne lesions severity and type should be considered in order to obtain optimal results
Conceptual (and hence mathematical) explanation, conceptual grounding and proof
No full textThis paper studies the notions of conceptual grounding and conceptual explanation (which includes the notion of mathematical explanation), with an aim of clarifying the links between them. On the one hand, it analyses complex examples of these two notions that bring to the fore features that are easily overlooked otherwise. On the other hand, it provides a formal framework for modeling both conceptual grounding and conceptual explanation, based on the concept of proof. Inspiration and analogies are drawn with the recent research in metaphysics on the pair metaphysical grounding–metaphysical explanation, and especially with the literature in philosophy of science on the pair causality-causal explanation
Grounding, Quantifiers, and Paradoxes
No full textThe notion of grounding is usually conceived as an objective and explanatory relation. It connects two relata if one-the ground-determines or explains the other-the consequence. In the contemporary literature on grounding, much effort has been devoted to logically characterize the formal aspects of grounding, but a major hard problem remains: defining suitable grounding principles for universal and existential formulae. Indeed, several grounding principles for quantified formulae have been proposed, but all of them are exposed to paradoxes in some very natural contexts of application. We introduce in this paper a first-order formal system that captures the notion of grounding and avoids the paradoxes in a novel and non-trivial way. The system we present formally develops Bolzano's ideas on grounding by employing Hilbert's epsilon-terms and an adapted version of Fine's theory of arbitrary objects
Defining Formal Explanation in Classical Logic by Substructural Derivability
No full textPrecisely framing a formal notion of explanation is a hard problem of great relevance for several areas of scientific investigation such as computer science, philosophy and mathematics. We study a notion of formal explanation according to which an explanation of a formula F must contain all and only the true formulae that concur in determining the truth of F. Even though this notion of formal explanation is defined by reference to derivability in classical logic, the relation that holds between the explained formula and the formulae explaining it has a distinct substructural flavour, due to the fact that no redundancy is admitted among the explaining formulae. We formalise this intuition and prove that this notion of formal explanation is essentially connected, in a very specific sense, to derivability in a substructural calculu
Role of microRNAs in host defense against Echinococcus granulosus infection: a preliminary assessment
No full textCystic echinococcosis (CE) is a neglected helminthic zoonosis caused by the larval stage of the tapeworm Echinococcus granulosus s.l. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are regulators of gene expression that have been linked with the pathogenesis of several human diseases, but little exists in the available literature about miRNAs in CE. Here, we investigate the expression profiles of 84 microRNAs relevant to the function of lymphocytes and other immune cells during CE infection in the peripheral blood of patients with cysts in active and inactive stages. We applied the microRNA PCR array technology to blood samples from 20 patients with a single hepatic CE cyst in either the active (CE3b) or inactive (CE4–CE5) stage. Our results show a significant upregulation of eight miRNAs (let-7g-5p, let-7a-5p, miR- 26a-5p, miR- 26b-5p, miR- 195-5p, miR- 16-5p, miR- 30c-5p, and miR- 223-3p) in patients with active cysts compared to those with inactive cysts. The high expression of these miRNAs in patients with active cysts suggests their role in a specific host immune response against the infection. Further work in this direction may help shed light on the pathogenesis of human CE.Fil: Mariconti, Mara. Universita Degli Studi Di Pavia; ItaliaFil: Vola, Ambra. San Matteo Hospital Foundation; ItaliaFil: Manciulli, Tommaso. Universita Degli Studi Di Pavia; ItaliaFil: Genco, Francesca. San Matteo Hospital Foundation; ItaliaFil: Lissandrin, Raffaella. Universita Degli Studi Di Pavia; ItaliaFil: Meroni, Valeria. Universita Degli Studi Di Pavia; ItaliaFil: Rosenzvit, Mara Cecilia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Investigaciones en Microbiología y Parasitología Médica. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Investigaciones en Microbiología y Parasitología Médica; ArgentinaFil: Tamarozzi, Francesca. No especifíca;Fil: Brunetti, Enrico. Universita Degli Studi Di Pavia; Itali
Correction to: Role of microRNAs in host defense against Echinococcus granulosus infection: a preliminary assessment (Immunologic Research, (2018), 10.1007/s12026-018-9041-4)
No full textThe published article unfortunately contained mistake. After replacing the image from colored version to black and white, the Fig. 1 caption, unfortunately, was left unupdated
Factors Influencing the Serological Response in Hepatic Echinococcus granulosus Infection
No full textKnowledge of variables influencing serology is crucial to evaluate serology results for the diagnosis and clinical
management of cystic echinococcosis (CE). We analyzed retrospectively a cohort of patients with hepatic CE
followed in our clinic in 2000–2012 to evaluate the influence of several variables on the results of commercial
enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and indirect hemagglutination (IHA) tests. Sera from 171 patients
with 1 hepatic CE cyst, and 90 patients with nonparasitic cysts were analyzed. CE cysts were staged according to
the WHO-IWGE classification and grouped by activity. A significant difference in ELISA optical density (OD)
values and percentage of positivity was found among CE activity groups and with controls (P < 0.001). The
serological response was also influenced by age (P < 0.001) and cyst number (P = 0.003). OD values and cyst size
were positively correlated in active cysts (P = 0.001). IHA test showed comparable results. When we analyzed the
results of 151 patients followed over time, we found that serology results were significantly influenced by cyst
activity, size, number, and treatment 12 months before serum collection. In conclusion, serological responses as
assessed by commercial tests depend on CE cyst activity, size and number, and time from treatment. Clinical studies
and clinicians in their practice should take this into account
Correlation of serum sHLA-G levels with cyst stage in patients with cystic echinococcosis: is it an immune evasion strategy?
No full textPatients with cystic echinococcosis (CE) can harbour cysts for years or even decades, apparently without effect of the immune system on the metacestode. Although several immune evasion mechanisms by echinococcal cysts have been described, it is unclear whether the human leucocyte antigen (HLA) system plays a role in the susceptibility or resistance to CE in humans. HLA-G molecules are known to exert a suppressive action on dendritic cells maturation and on natural killer (NK) cells functions, therefore hampering T-cell responses and NK cytolysis. HLA-G plays an important role in immune tolerance, is involved in foetus and in allotransplant tolerance, and may be involved in tumoral and viral immune evasion. In this study, we assessed the presence and levels of soluble HLA-G (sHLA-G) in patients with CE using a commercial ELISA kit to determine whether host's HLA-G may have a role in the course of human CE
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