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Purpose: Obstructive Sleep Apnea is a widespread disease but is very underdiagnosed and undertreated. The aim of this study is to assess the effectiveness and patient satisfaction of using the WatchPAT® ONE, a disposable home sleep apnea test device, within a telemedicine-based management pathway. Methods: All patients who used the telemedicine services for OSA diagnosis using the WatchPAT® ONE were prospectively enrolled in the study. Patients receive the device at home and download its associated application to learn how to perform the test autonomously at night. Clinicians then review automated results transmitted by the cloud and conduct the follow-up visit via telemedicine, providing diagnostic and therapeutic guidance. Results: The study included 167 patients (78% male; mean age 55 ± 14 years; BMI: 27.5 ± 4.5 kg/cm²), with a mean distance of 147.29 ± 172.35 km from our hospital. The median time from test request to result delivery was 5 working days. The study cohort showed a median pAHI of 16.7 events/h, a median pODI was 7.9 events/h, and an pRDI of 20.7 events/h. 99% of respondents were satisfied with the remote management. Half of the subjects found both the application installation and the device operation extremely easy, and 60% of them were willing to recommend the use of WatchPAT® ONE. Conclusion: The telemedicine pathway represents an efficient and patient-friendly method for diagnosing OSA. This approach improves diagnostic ease and accessibility while reducing time to diagnosis and societal and healthcare costs. Further large-scale studies are necessary to confirm these results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Obstructive Sleep Apnea is a widespread disease but is very underdiagnosed and undertreated. The aim of this study is to assess the effectiveness and patient satisfaction of using the WatchPAT® ONE, a disposable home sleep apnea test device, within a telemedicine-based management pathway. Methods: All patients who used the telemedicine services for OSA diagnosis using the WatchPAT® ONE were prospectively enrolled in the study. Patients receive the device at home and download its associated application to learn how to perform the test autonomously at night. Clinicians then review automated results transmitted by the cloud and conduct the follow-up visit via telemedicine, providing diagnostic and therapeutic guidance. Results: The study included 167 patients (78% male; mean age 55 ± 14 years; BMI: 27.5 ± 4.5 kg/cm²), with a mean distance of 147.29 ± 172.35 km from our hospital. The median time from test request to result delivery was 5 working days. The study cohort showed a median pAHI of 16.7 events/h, a median pODI was 7.9 events/h, and an pRDI of 20.7 events/h. 99% of respondents were satisfied with the remote management. Half of the subjects found both the application installation and the device operation extremely easy, and 60% of them were willing to recommend the use of WatchPAT® ONE. Conclusion: The telemedicine pathway represents an efficient and patient-friendly method for diagnosing OSA. This approach improves diagnostic ease and accessibility while reducing time to diagnosis and societal and healthcare costs. Further large-scale studies are necessary to confirm these results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Esports phenomenon, associated with the dimension of competitive electronic sports, has gained academic attention in recent years. For this reason, this research aims to categorize and classify the articles on the Esports phenomenon. The construction of a systematic review of the present literature will allow us to provide an insight into the current representation of the Esports phenomenon, from the analysis of the viewpoints to the disciplinary lenses that imply such research. To fulfill this objective, the work has been structured in several stages via the Sciilit academic indexing platform to the analysis of the collected data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Actors in the digital public sphere contribute to the public discourse on health and well-being by producing big data in various ways. User-generated health data are natural digital traces that social networks, wearable devices, health apps, and search engines can generate. The proliferation of usergenerated content impacts the production, circulation, and consumption of health news, ensuring a vibrant public sphere on the topic. In today's world, it is crucial to identify how new health-produced datasets can be used to assess Social Determinants of Health (SDH). SDH includes non-medical factors that influence health outcomes, such as the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age and what shapes the conditions of daily life. Health technologies hold great promise for developing digital health skills and improving health outcomes for patients with chronic diseases. Contemporary societies have undergone an epidemiological transition that has seen infectiouspredominant diseases transform over the years into chronic-degenerative diseases. Social media provides an open forum for communication between individuals, and content creators on TikTok are progressively changing the way audiovisual texts are produced and enjoyed, following a logic that tends towards media convergence and intermediality. This article aims to conceptualize how influencers providing public health information promote knowledge related to the obesity debate. Based on a sample of TikTok videos, we can gather insights and interpretations that help analyze the messages and themes conveyed by social media influencers. This analysis can help us to identify information and dimensions relevant to health advocacy and shed light on the underlying discourses and themes in their content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, various disciplines have focused on the Smart City concept and phenomenon. Whether people can approach the smart city concept without fear and risk of losing their sensitive data is still a major concern. This paper intends to investigate, through an analysis conducted by extrapolating tweets on the social media Twitter, the relationship existing between the Smart City and Italian citizens. The objective consists in a descriptive content analysis capable of providing a perception and use of the Smart City concept relative to the Italian population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(1) Background: The importance of sport in advancing the roadmap for the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda was reaffirmed at the 7th Summit on Smart Cities and Sport (Lausanne, 26–28 October 2020), where it was emphasized that developing a culture of sustainability among younger generations is crucial. Given this scenario, the present study focuses on two main research questions: "Is there a diffusion of an environmentally oriented culture among university students?" and "Is there a relationship between sports' world and environmentally oriented culture?" (2) Methods: To establish the empirical framework (279 questionnaires received), we used web-based survey techniques with a Computer-Assisted Web Interviewing (CAWI) procedure. (3) Results: The analysis results show that the sample considers environmental sustainability as a part of a more comprehensive understanding of sustainability, which reflects a sense of fear for uncertainty in the future. The second finding suggests that sport does not play a significant role in shaping awareness. (4) Conclusions: The cultural and generational background must be considered for better understanding of the research results, especially in Italy where it appears that sustainability is not considered a priority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is not known if children and adolescents with atypical Spitz tumour and cutaneous melanoma differ in terms of etiological factors. The aim of this study was to explain differences in individual and environmental factors between cutaneous melanoma and atypical Spitz tumour. In the context of a study on melanocytic lesions, all subjects aged under 20 years with either cutaneous melanoma or atypical Spitz tumour were included (N = 105). Information on socio-demographic characteristics, individual and environmental factors were collected for both mother and child. The Fisher's exact test and the Mann–Whitney U test were used for categorical variables and continuous variables respectively. A multivariate logistic model was used to explain differences in outcome by differences in explanatory variables. In comparison to patients with cutaneous melanoma, patients with atypical Spitz tumour had less freckles (p = 0.020), lower number of common nevi (p = 0.002), and lower body mass index (p = 0.001) and experienced less sunburns episodes (p = 0.008). However, in the multivariate analysis, only a low number of common nevi remained statistically significant. Children and adolescents with cutaneous melanoma have a high number of nevi in comparison to the same-age group with atypical Spitz tumour. Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that the only difference in individual and environmental risk factors between cutaneous melanoma and atypical Spitz tumour in children and adolescents is the number of nevi. What is Known: •Atypical Spitz tumours and cutaneous melanoma in children and adolescents are clinically similar, but compared with melanoma, they have a good overall prognosis. •Risk factors for cutaneous melanoma in children and adolescents are similar to the ones found in adults in the literature What is New: •Differences in individual and environmental risk factors for atypical Spitz tumour in children and adolescents are described for the first time in this study. •Individual and environmental factors for atypical Spitz tumour in children and adolescents are comparable to cutaneous melanoma, except for the presence of low number of nevi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent efforts in transfusion medicine are focused on improving blood safety as well as establishing effective and efficient diagnostic algorithms for donor screening. To date, syphilis is a transfusion-transmitted infection re-emerged in many countries as a public health threat especially among populations at specific risk. This task requires new diagnostic tools and hemovigilance programs. The current diagnostic methodologies are debated, since presenting limitations and unresolved issues with special regard to the clinical interpretation of serological patterns, especially in asymptomatic patients and in blood donors. Furthermore, the switch from the traditional to alternative diagnostic algorithms underlines the lack of a gold standard, which has not been supported by shared guidelines. Besides, a lot of ongoing clinical trials on the performance of diagnostic assays, on the serological response associated with different pharmacological treatments, as well as on the prevention programs are currently under investigation. Here, we review the recent literature about the diagnosis of syphilis especially for low-risk populations proposing the adoption of an algorithm for blood donor screening that should satisfy the need of increasing safety for transfusion-transmitted infections in the modern blood transfusion centers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the 1980s, extracorporeal photochemotherapy ( ECP) has been shown to be effective in a variety of pathological conditions such as erythrodermic cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, autoimmune diseases, solid organ allograft rejection and graft versus host disease. To date, ECP represents a non-aggressive immune modulatory therapy with a low spectrum of toxicity. ECP reduces the alloreactivity promoting the immune tolerance to self. At the same time, it allows the maintenance of immune response integrity of both naive and memory T-cells. However, the molecular mechanisms of action by which ECP exerts its therapeutic activity are still under investigation. Here, we review molecular mechanisms and clinical applications involved in ECP. The outcome of ECP is difficult due to the lack of reliable predictor factors for the selection of patients and their adequate follow-up. Since the study of such predictors is important, we also describe some biological markers that enable us to investigate the clinical management of the patients considered for the use of ECP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chronic inflammation is widely diffuse in maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) patients and is associated with poor survival. Hemodiafiltration with endogenous reinfusion (HFR) is a dialysis technique, highly biocompatible, able to adsorb proinflammatory cytokines and to decrease amino acids and antioxidants loss. These features could be helpful in MHD patients affected by idiopathic chronic inflammation, but this issue remains to be elucidated. We performed a multicenter longitudinal study to assess the effect of the switching from bicarbonate HD to HFR in patients with serum C-reactive Protein (CRP) > 5 mg/L coupled with albumin <4.0 g/dL in the last 6 months. We enrolled 24/176 (14%) patients, of which 20 patients were assessed at 4 months and 18 completed the study. We excluded 11 patients with evident causes of inflammation. At baseline, serum levels of CRP (18.7[7.0-39.4] mg/L) and albumin (3.5[3.3-3.7] g/dL) were significantly correlated (r = -0.49; P = 0.028). The effect on CRP and albumin was almost evident in the first 4 months and remained stable until to eighth month. A strict correlation (R = -0.49; 0.040) between percentage change of CRP (-35%) and albumin (+14%) after 8 months of HFR. These effects were associated with the reduction of IL-6, IL-1β, and TNF-α and the increment of pre-albumin and leptin, whereas the serum levels of Branched Chain Amino Acid (BCAA) remained unchanged. In MHD patients affected by idiopathic chronic inflammation the switching from BHD to HFR is associated with improvement of inflammation. Whether these favorable effects may modify the outcomes of these high-risk patients needs to be confirmed by studies ad hoc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Automated chemiluminescent immunoassays (CLIAs) are useful for the detection of hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV), and human immunodeficiency virus 1/2 antigen/antibodies (HIV 1/2 Ag/Ab) in blood donor screening. Eight hundred and forty serum samples were tested for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), HCV antibodies (anti-HCV), and HIV1/2 Ag/Ab in parallel using 2 different CLIAs (Abbott Architect i2000SR and Roche Cobas e411). The concordance between the 2 systems was high (Cohen's kappa 0.97 for HBsAg, 0.77 for anti-HCV, 0.92 for HIV1/2 Ag/Ab) and the specificity and the positive predictive value were comparable. Among the 12 discrepant results, 11 were false-positive and 1 (reactive by Architect) was true-positive for anti-HCV. Positivity for HBV DNA, HCV RNA, and HIV RNA was recorded in 90.9%, 38.9%, and 100% of true-positive samples, respectively. This study represents the first stringent comparison between Architect i2000SR and Cobas e411 in blood donors. We observed a good correlation and high agreement among HBV, HCV, and HIV with the 2 automated systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To evaluate the prevalence of human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8) DNA detection in a large series of human immunodeficiency virus–seronegative patients with and without Kaposi sarcoma (KS) from the central and southern regions of Italy where classic KS is prevalent. Design: Samples of lesional, peripheral unaffected, and distant normal skin and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from 33 patients with KS and PBMCs from 42 control subjects were analyzed using single and nested polymerase chain reaction techniques for the presence of HHV-8 DNA. Patients: A total of 33 patients with KS not related to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (26 patients with classic KS and 7 patients with iatrogenic KS) were studied. Furthermore, 2 control groups were enrolled. The first group consisted of 13 healthy volunteers, the second of 29 patients affected by different dermatological diseases. Results: Human herpesvirus 8 sequences were found in 100% of lesional and perilesional specimens, in 33% of the distant normal skin samples, and in 69.6% of the PBMCs from patients with KS. A possible correlation between HHV-8 DNA in PBMCs and the clinical stage of the disease was observed. Moreover, the prevalence of viral DNA in PBMCs from the total control group was 23.8%. No viral DNA was detected in tissue biopsy specimens taken from the control group. Conclusions: Our data suggest that HHV-8 could be a widespread virus, at least in Mediterranean regions where KS is more prevalent, such as southern and central Italy. As with other herpesviruses, it may be present lifelong in latent form somewhere in the body and may contribute to the pathogenesis of KS when other predisposing conditions are present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]