University of Perugia

About: University of Perugia is a education organization based out in Perugia, Umbria, Italy. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Large Hadron Collider. The organization has 13365 authors who have published 39516 publications receiving 1265601 citations. The organization is also known as: Universitá degli Studi di Perugia & Universita degli Studi di Perugia.

Nadroparin for the prevention of thromboembolic events in ambulatory patients with metastatic or locally advanced solid cancer receiving chemotherapy: a randomised, placebo-controlled, double-blind study

Abstract: Summary Background Clinical trials are needed to assess the clinical benefit of antithrombotic prophylaxis in patients with cancer who are receiving chemotherapy, since these patients are at an increased risk of developing a thromboembolism. We did a trial to assess the clinical benefit of the low-molecular-weight heparin nadroparin for the prophylaxis of thromboembolic events in ambulatory patients receiving chemotherapy for metastatic or locally advanced solid cancer. Methods Between October, 2003, and May, 2007, ambulatory patients with lung, gastrointestinal, pancreatic, breast, ovarian, or head and neck cancer were randomly assigned in a double-blind manner to receive subcutaneous injections of nadroparin (3800 IU anti-Xa once a day, n=779) or placebo (n=387), in a 2:1 ratio. Study treatment was given for the duration of chemotherapy up to a maximum of 4 months. The primary study outcome was the composite of symptomatic venous or arterial thromboembolic events, as assessed by an independent adjudication committee. All randomised patients who received at least one dose of study treatment were included in the efficacy and safety analyses (modified intention-to-treat population). The study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT 00951574. Findings 1150 patients were included in the primary efficacy and safety analyses: 769 patients in the nadroparin group and 381 patients in the placebo group. 15 (2·0%) of 769 patients treated with nadroparin and 15 (3·9%) of 381 patients treated with placebo had a thromboembolic event (single-sided p=0·02). Five (0·7%) of 769 patients in the nadroparin group and no patients in the placebo group had a major bleeding event (two-sided p=0·18). The incidences of minor bleeding were 7·4% (57 of 769) with nadroparin and 7·9% (30 of 381) with placebo. There were 121 (15·7%) serious adverse events in the nadroparin goup and 67 (17·6%) serious adverse events in the placebo group. Interpretation Nadroparin reduces the incidence of thromboembolic events in ambulatory patients with metastatic or locally advanced cancer who are receiving chemotherapy. Future studies should focus on patients who are at a high risk for thromboembolic events. Funding Italfarmaco SpA, Milan, Italy.

Accelerated Atherosclerosis in Autoimmune Rheumatic Diseases

Abstract: Received October 16, 2004; revision received June 4, 2005; accepted June 7, 2005 Atherosclerosis is a multifactorial process that commences in childhood but manifests clinically later in life Atherosclerosis is increasingly considered an immune system–mediated process of the vascular system The presence of macrophages and activated lymphocytes within atherosclerotic plaques supports the concept of atherosclerosis as an immune system–mediated inflammatory disorder1,2 Inflammation can aggravate atherosclerosis via different mechanisms secondary to autoimmunity, infectious diseases, and other proatherogenic changes that occur during the inflammatory state Autoimmune rheumatic diseases (AIRDs) are associated with higher rates of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, primarily secondary to accelerated atherosclerosis This phenomenon can be attributed to traditional risk factors for atherosclerosis and use of specific drugs, such as corticosteroids, but also might be the result of other autoimmune and inflammatory mechanisms that are aggravated in AIRDs Several AIRDs exhibit increased overt cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevalence as well as findings of advanced subclinical atherosclerosis, which may precede the appearance of a clinical disease and thus be a target of early identification and preventive therapy Cells of the immune system can be found within atherosclerotic plaques, which suggests that they have a role in the atherogenic process Their migration and activation within the plaques can be secondary to various stimuli, including infectious agents3 These cells probably aggravate atherosclerosis, because CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell depletion reduced fatty streak formation in C57BL/6 mice In addition, after crossing of apolipoprotein E (ApoE)-knockout mice with immunodeficient scid/scid mice, the offspring had a 73% reduction in aortic fatty streak lesions compared with the immunocompetent apoE mice Moreover, when CD4+ T cells were transferred from the immunocompetent to the immunodeficient mice, they increased lesion area in the latter by 164%4 It is therefore not surprising that as in autoimmune diseases, the cellular components …

Jet energy scale and resolution in the CMS experiment in pp collisions at 8 TeV

Abstract: Improved jet energy scale corrections, based on a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 fb^(-1) collected by the CMS experiment in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV, are presented. The corrections as a function of pseudorapidity η and transverse momentum p_T are extracted from data and simulated events combining several channels and methods. They account successively for the effects of pileup, uniformity of the detector response, and residual data-simulation jet energy scale differences. Further corrections, depending on the jet flavor and distance parameter (jet size) R, are also presented. The jet energy resolution is measured in data and simulated events and is studied as a function of pileup, jet size, and jet flavor. Typical jet energy resolutions at the central rapidities are 15–20% at 30 GeV, about 10% at 100 GeV, and 5% at 1 TeV. The studies exploit events with dijet topology, as well as photon+jet, Z+jet and multijet events. Several new techniques are used to account for the various sources of jet energy scale corrections, and a full set of uncertainties, and their correlations, are provided. The final uncertainties on the jet energy scale are below 3% across the phase space considered by most analyses (p_T > 30 GeV and 0|η| 30 GeV is reached, when excluding the jet flavor uncertainties, which are provided separately for different jet flavors. A new benchmark for jet energy scale determination at hadron colliders is achieved with 0.32% uncertainty for jets with p_T of the order of 165–330 GeV, and |η| < 0.8.