Translation and cultural adaptation of the Italian version of the Paediatric Palliative Screening Scale.

The number of children eligible for Paediatric Palliative Care has dramatically increased over the years, with few tools that can help with early identification. The Paediatric Palliative Screening Scale is a dedicated German, English, and Portuguese screening tool. We aimed to translate and perform a cultural adaptation to the Italian setting of the Paediatric Palliative Screening Scale. This paper was a descriptive observational cross-sectional study. We carried it out in two consecutive steps: (1) translation and back translation and (2) cultural adaptation through a Delphi process. Twenty Paediatric Palliative Care national experts were invited to judge the content and structure of the translated scale and to assess the appropriateness and clarity of each question. Consensus was defined as 70% or more of experts agreeing with each item's appropriateness and clarity. The Italian version of the Paediatric Palliative Screening Scale was obtained after two rounds of Delphi. After the second round of consultation, a substantial increase in experts' consensus was found, especially for questions 1.1, 3.2 and 3.3 (from 56.3 to 93.8%), and reaching more than 83% for all the revised items. CONCLUSIONS: The Paediatric Palliative Screening Scale is a reliable tool that can assist in timely evaluating children who qualify for Paediatric Palliative Care. The tool can be used in Italian healthcare settings with its cultural adaptation. WHAT IS KNOWN: • Despite the lack of early diagnosis techniques, there is a significant increase in the number of children entitled to Paediatric Palliative Care. • A specific screening tool called the Paediatric Palliative Screening Scale determines a child's suitability for paediatric palliative treatment. WHAT IS NEW: • The Paediatric Palliative Screening Scale is necessary to assess the psychosocial needs of patients eligible for Paediatric Palliative Care. The Italian scale has good content and face validity ensuring equivalence between the original and target populations.

Activation of Toll-like receptor-2 by glycosylphosphatidylinositol anchors from a protozoan parasite.

Glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI) anchors and glycoinositolphospholipids (GIPLs) from parasitic protozoa have been shown to exert a wide variety of effects on cells of the host innate immune system. However, the receptor(s) that are triggered by these protozoan glycolipids has not been identified. Here we present evidence that Trypanosoma cruzi-derived GPI anchors and GIPLs trigger CD25 expression on Chinese hamster ovary-K1 cells transfected with CD14 and Toll-like receptor-2 (TLR-2), but not wild-type (TLR-2-deficient) Chinese hamster ovary cells. The protozoan-derived GPI anchors and GIPLs containing alkylacylglycerol and saturated fatty acid chains or ceramide were found to be active in a concentration range of 100 nM to 1 microM. More importantly, the GPI anchors purified from T. cruzi trypomastigotes, which contain a longer glycan core and unsaturated fatty acids in the sn-2 position of the alkylacylglycerolipid component, triggered TLR-2 at subnanomolar concentrations. We performed experiments with macrophages from TLR-2 knockout and TLR-4 knockout mice, and found that TLR-2 expression appears to be essential for induction of IL-12, TNF-alpha, and NO by GPI anchors derived from T. cruzi trypomastigotes. Thus, highly purified GPI anchors from T. cruzi parasites are potent activators of TLR-2 from both mouse and human origin. The activation of TLR-2 may initiate host innate defense mechanisms and inflammatory response during protozoan infection, and may provide new strategies for immune intervention during protozoan infections.

Estudo de famílias de touros da raça Gir e identificaçäo de novos fenogrupos do sistema B e de grupos sangüíneos / Gir breed sire family analyses and identification of new phenogroups of the B system blood group

Foram analisados testes de tipagem sangüínea de 91 animais da raça Gir, pertencentes a um rebanho altamente selecionado para produçäo leiteira. Pelo método de famílias de touros foram estudadas as progênies dos três principais touros fundadores do rebanho. Três novos fenogrupos foram identificados e suas freqüências na amostra foram: B(P)QTE'3G'P', 17,03 por cento; BGKO1TY2D'E'1, 10,98 por cento e BGKY2A'(B')D'E'3G'P'Q', 8,79 por cento

Freqüência dos alelos do gene da k-caseína em populaçäo selecionada, näo selecionada e em touros de Central de Inseminaçäo Artificial de animais da raça Gir / Frequency of the k-casein alleles in selected, non-selected populations and in bulls from Artificial Insemination Centers in Gir cattle

O trabalho foi desenvolvido com 30 fêmeas Gir, selecionadas para produçäo de leite, 30 fêmeas Gir näo selecionadas para essa finalidade e 26 touros de Central de Inseminaçäo Artificial. A partir dos leucócitos, fez-se a extraçäo, a dosagem do DNA genômico, a amplificaçäo e a digestäo do gene da k-caseína (regiäo de 99pb) com as endonucleases de restriçäo Taq I, Mbo II e, em casos de dúvidas, com a HindIII. As genotipagens tiveram como resultados as seguintes freqüência genotípicas e gênicas: 100 por cento AA(1,0 A) nos animais Gir selecionados, 93,33 por cento AA, 3,33 por cento AB e 3,33 por cento BB (0,95A e 0,05B) nas fêmeas näo selecionadas e 76,92 por cento AA e 23,08 por cento AB (0,88A e 0,12B) nos touros Gir de Central de Inseminaçäo. Somente na comparaçäo entre a populaçäo dos touros de central com as fêmeas Gir selecionadas houve diferença significativa quanto ao número de alelos e genótipos