RESUMO
Plants need to be protected against pests and diseases, so as to assure an adequate production, and therefore to contribute to food security. However, some of the used pesticides are harmful compounds, and thus the right balance between the need to increase food production with the need to ensure the safety of people, food and the environment must be struck. In particular, when dealing with fruit and vegetable wastes, their content in agrochemicals should be monitored, especially in peel and skins, and eventually minimized before or during further processing to separate or concentrate bioactive compounds from it. The general objective of this review is to investigate initial levels of pesticide residues and their potential reduction through further processing for some of the most contaminated fruit and vegetable wastes. Focus will be placed on extraction and drying processes being amid the main processing steps used in the recuperation of bioactive compounds from fruit and vegetable wastes.
RESUMO
In patients with atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome (aHUS), complement blocking by eculizumab rapidly halts the process of thrombotic microangiopathy and it is associated with clear long-term hematologic and renal improvements. Eculizumab treatment consists of a 4-week initial phase with weekly IV administration of 900 mg doses, followed by a maintenance phase with a 1,200 mg dose in the fifth week and every 14 ± 2 days thereafter. We present three patients with aHUS and suboptimal response to eculizumab treatment at the usual administration dosage who showed hematologic and renal improvements after an adjustment in the eculizumab treatment protocol.
