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Vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 have shown high efficacy in clinical trials, yet a full immunologic characterization of these vaccines, particularly within the upper respiratory tract, remains lacking. We enumerated and phenotyped T cells in nasal mucosa and blood before and after vaccination with the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine (n =21). Tissue-resident memory (Trm) CD8+ T cells expressing CD69+CD103+ expanded ∼12 days following the first and second doses, by 0.31 and 0.43 log10cells per swab respectively (p=0.058 and p=0.009 in adjusted linear mixed models). CD69+CD103+CD8+ T cells in the blood decreased post-vaccination. Similar increases in nasal CD8+CD69+CD103-T cells were observed, particularly following the second dose. CD4+ Th17 cells were also increased in abundance following both doses. Following stimulation with SARS-CoV-2 spike peptides, CD8+ T cells increased expression of CD107a and CD154. These data suggest that nasal T cells may be induced and contribute to the protective immunity afforded by this vaccine.

"In thiswork a time-frequency approach to estimate the Cortico-Muscular Coherence for the detection of the movement intent is presented, assessed on simulated data, and evaluated experimentally during different motor tasks performed by healthy subjects and patients suffering from different types of tremor. Cortico-Muscular Coherence is an index of the coupling of EEG signal in the cortical area with sEMG activity in the frequency domain, and its contributions in the beta band (15–30 Hz) have been associated to the movement intent. Cortico-Muscular Coherence estimation is here achieved by considering a closed-loop representation of the signals under analysis obtained through Multivariate Auto Regressive modeling. Significance levels for Cortico-Muscular Coherence are assessed by means of a surrogate data analysis approach. The detection technique is able to reveal significant Cortico-Muscular Coherence changes in 79% of the experimental trials, with a mean anticipation of 1.35 s with respect to movement onset. Time-frequency estimation of CMC can provide an insight for the development of a multimodal BCI able to integrate information from the brain activity in the functioning of assistive devices." In this work a time-frequency approach to estimate the Cortico-Muscular Coherence for the detection of the movement intent is presented, assessed on simulated data, and evaluated experimentally during different motor tasks performed by healthy subjects and patients suffering from different types of tremor. Cortico-Muscular Coherence is an index of the coupling of EEG signal in the cortical area with sEMG activity in the frequency domain, and its contributions in the beta band (15-30 Hz) have been associated to the movement intent. Cortico-Muscular Coherence estimation is here achieved by considering a closed-loop representation of the signals under analysis obtained through Multivariate Auto Regressive modeling. Significance levels for Cortico-Muscular Coherence are assessed by means of a surrogate data analysis approach. The detection technique is able to reveal significant Cortico-Muscular Coherence changes in 79% of the experimental trials, with a mean anticipation of 1.35 s with respect to movement onset. Time-frequency estimation of Cortico-Muscular Coherence can provide an insight for the development of a multimodal BCI able to integrate information from the brain activity in the functioning of assistive devices. © 2012 - IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved.

"All the methods to control electric-powered wheelchair (EPW) with user’s gaze require a graphical user interface. (GUI) to select and confirm commands. This kind of GUI may give non natural guide and partial obstructed sight. As. further gaze independent inputs are needed for safety issues, we propose a high-level scheme of a system integrating an. eye-gaze tracking system (EGTS) to select the desired motion command, with a brain-computer interface (BCI) using the. user’s electroencephalogram (EEG) as a motion activation command, obtaining a safer obstruction-free eye-and. brain-guided EPW."

In this work authors would like to propose a novel time-frequency approach to the study of cortico-muscular coherence in the detection of movement intent and evaluation of tremor during task performed by tremorous patients. This method is based on coherence calculation from a closed-loop representation of the signals under analysis obtained through Multivariate Auto Regressive modeling. Significance levels for the coherence will be assessed by means of a surrogate data analysis approach. Preliminary observations obtained using this method on data acquired from two tremorous patients on rest and dynamic tasks will be exposed.

In a limited study, comprising only ten patients, we have previously reported that allogeneic irradiated RCC-cell-line cells, engineered to produce IL-2 (ACHN-IL-2), admixed with autologous metastatic formalin-treated tumour cells were used to vaccinate MRCC patients in progression of disease and also receiving IL-2 immunotherapy. The cells, admixed to autologous TC, were administered subcutaneously. We now report an extended study on thirty patients and one hundred thirty-one controls. Patients received 4-20 injections (mean 10 +/- 4), containing an average of 92 x 10(6) +/- 45 x 10(6) ACHN-IL-2 transfected cells (a minimum of 25 x 10(6), and a maximum of 200 x 10(6)). Autologous TC, admixed to allogeneic, were also administered by 4-16 s.c. injections (mean 7 +/- 3), i.e. a total of 12 x 10(6)-160 x 10(6) cells. Vaccination was administered during 73-1451 (307 +/- 316) days, and the follow-up continued for 1122 +/- 1240 days (106-5137). Throughout this period, the patients continued receiving the previously set immunotherapy treatment. No adverse side effects related to the treatment were noticed. One complete and four partial tumour responses were observed, as well as nine cases of stable disease. Thirteen patients died in the treated group (43%) and 63 (44%) in the control group. Responding patients resumed progression in 4-11 months and died 18 and 36 months after beginning the vaccine therapy. The Gehan Wilcoxon's test showed a significantly (P0.01) better survival in the vaccinated patients compared to that of the controls. Thus, we confirm, in an increased number of patients and an extensive follow-up, that our vaccination protocol is safe, devoid of adverse side effects, and promising.

Results of conventional treatment of female non-bacterial recurrent cystitis (NBRC) are discouraging. Most patients show an unexpected high incidence of vaginal candidiasis, while their cell mediated immunity to Herpes simplex viruses (HSV) and Candida antigens seems impaired, and it is known that the persistence of mucocutaneous chronic candidiasis is mainly due to a selective defect of CMI to Candida antigens. Twenty nine women suffering of NBRC, and in whom previous treatment with antibiotics and non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs was unsuccessful, underwent oral transfer factor (TF) therapy. TF specific to Candida and/or to HSV was administered bi-weekly for the first 2 weeks, and then once a week for the following 6 months. No side effects were observed during treatment. The total observation period of our cohort was 24379 days with 353 episodes of cystitis recorded and a cumulative relapse index (RI) of 43. The observation period during and after treatment was 13920 days with 108 relapses and a cumulative RI of 23 (P < 0.0001). It, thus, seems that specific TF may be capable of controlling NBRC and alleviate the symptoms.

Forty patients with advanced transitional cell cancer (TCC) of the bladder were treated with cisplatin, epirubicin, methotrexate (PEM, every 3-4 weeks). If creatinine clearance was reduced to 40 ml/min, the usual full doses of cisplatin and methotrexate, 50 mg/m2, were proportionally reduced. 23 patients had full-dose (FD) therapy, 17 had reduced dose (RD) (40-20 mg/m2). Two patients achieved complete response and 17 partial response. The overall response rate was 19/40 (47.5%), 11/23 (48%) for FD and 8/17 (47%) for RD (p = 1.000). 17/40 pts (42.5%) had no-change and 4/40 (10%) had disease progression. The median duration of CR and PR was 32 weeks, range 4-82 (22 weeks, range 12-52 for FD; 32 weeks, range 4-82 for RD, cisplatin p = .7362). The main side effect was vomiting (35/40 pts, 87.5%, 20/23 = 87% for FD, 15/17 = 90% for RD, p = 1.000). Leukopenia was observed in 12 patients (30%, nadir 3,240 range 900-3,800, 6/23 = 26% for FD, 6/17 = 35% for RD, p = .7285), alopecia in 18 patients (45%, 15/23 = 65% for FD, 3/17 = 18% for RD, p = .004). The results of this study show that a dose escalation to 50 mg/m2 for cisplatin, epirubicin and methotrexate in the PEM regimen results in an increase in overall response (OR) (19/40 = 47.5%) with respect to a historical control using the same drugs at doses of 40 mg/m2 (12/35 = 34%). In patients with normal renal function the escalated dose was tolerated without a corresponding increase in toxicity.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

The Erectile Dysfunction Observational Study (EDOS) is a 6-months observational prospective multicentric study enrolling men with erectile dysfunction (ED) who asked, to be started on a treatment or to change a previous treatment. Aims of the study were to analyse the pattern of treatment and compare the efficacy of treatments used. Patients were enrolled during a normal hospital visit and were prescribed a treatment for ED. They were asked at baseline and after 3 and 6 months, to answer a set of questions from the International Index of Erectile Function, Erectile Dysfunction Inventory of Treatment Satisfaction (EDITS) and Short Form of the Psychological and Interpersonal Relationships Scale questionnaires (SF-PAIRS). Clinicians were free to prescribe any therapy for ED available in the market, and to change therapy at any time during the study. Out of 1 338 patients, available for analysis at 6 months, 624 (47%) changed their treatment during the study and 714 (53%) continued with the drug prescribed at baseline. Patients assuming tadalafil had a significantly higher probability of maintaining the same treatment compared to sildenafil or vardenafil. There was no clinically significant difference in terms of efficacy, patient satisfaction, self-confidence and spontaneity between the different inhibitors of PDE5. The 'time concerns' domain score of SF-PAIRS, was statistically better in patients assuming tadalafil. In conclusion sildenafil, vardenafil and tadalafil show similar efficacy in the clinical practice. However, patients receiving tadalafil display a lower risk to discontinue or change the treatment.

X-linked dilated cardiomyopathy (XLDC) is a familial heart disease presenting in young males as a rapidly progressive congestive heart failure, without clinical signs of skeletal myopathy. This condition has recently been linked to the dystrophin gene in some families and deletions encompassing the genomic region coding for the first muscle exon have been detected. In order to identify the defect responsible for this disease at the molecular level and to understand the reasons for the selective heart involvement, a family with a severe form of XLDC was studied. In the affected members, no deletions of the dystrophin gene were observed. Analysis of the muscle promoter, first exon and intron regions revealed the presence of a single point mutation at the first exon-intron boundary, inactivating the universally conserved 5' splice site consensus sequence of the first intron. This mutation introduced a new restriction site for Msel, which cosegregates with the disease in the analyzed family. Expression of the major dystrophin mRNA isoforms (from the muscle-, brain- and Purkinje cell-promoters) was completely abolished in the myocardium, while the brain- and Purkinje cell- (but not the muscle-) isoforms were detectable in the skeletal muscle. Immunocytochemical studies with anti-dystrophin antibodies showed that the protein was reduced in quantity but normally distributed in the skeletal muscle, while it was undetectable in the cardiac muscle. These findings indicate that expression of the muscle dystrophin isoform is critical for myocardial function and suggest that selective heart involvement in dystrophin-linked dilated cardiomyopathy is related to the absence, in the heart, of a compensatory expression of dystrophin from alternative promoters.