ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a difficult-to-treat inflammatory skin disease with a high impact on patients' quality of life. Dupilumab, an IL-4 and IL-13 inhibitor, was the first monoclonal antibody approved for the treatment of moderate-to-severe AD and is currently approved in patients aged 6 or older. METHODS: This is a nationwide, multicenter, retrospective, 48-week study designed by the Portuguese Group of AD to assess real-world efficacy and safety of dupilumab for the treatment of AD. RESULTS: A total of 169 patients were enrolled, with a mean disease duration of 22.75 (±11.98) years. The percentage of patients achieving an improvement of at least 75% in Eczema Area and Severity Index (EASI) compared to baseline (EASI75 response) at weeks 12 and 48 was 67.6% and 74.1%, respectively. In the same timepoints, 25.0% and 44.1% achieved an EASI90 response. Patient-reported outcome measures also improved throughout the study period. Regarding safety, 32.0% of the patients developed adverse events, with conjunctivitis (26.6%), persistent facial erythema (4.7%), and arthritis/arthralgia (3.6%) as the more frequently reported. CONCLUSION: Data from real-world populations are crucial to guide clinicians in their daily decisions. This study provides data demonstrating that dupilumab is an effective and safe therapeutic option for AD.
Subject(s)
Dermatitis, Atopic , Antibodies, Monoclonal, Humanized , Dermatitis, Atopic/drug therapy , Humans , Portugal , Quality of Life , Retrospective Studies , Severity of Illness Index , Treatment OutcomeABSTRACT
In this work we demonstrate by photoluminescence studies white light emission from a monolithic InGaN/GaN single quantum well structure grown by metal organic chemical vapour deposition. As-grown and thermally annealed samples at high temperature (1000 °C, 1100 °C and 1200 °C) and high pressure (1.1 GPa) were analysed by spectroscopic techniques, and the annealing effect on the photoluminescence is deeply explored. Under laser excitation of 3.8 eV at room temperature, the as-grown structure exhibits two main emission bands: a yellow band peaked at 2.14 eV and a blue band peaked at 2.8 eV resulting in white light perception. Interestingly, the stability of the white light is preserved after annealing at the lowest temperature (1000 °C), but suppressed for higher temperatures due to a deterioration of the blue quantum well emission. Moreover, the control of the yellow/blue bands intensity ratio, responsible for the white colour coordinate temperatures, could be achieved after annealing at 1000 °C. The room temperature white emission is studied as a function of incident power density, and the correlated colour temperature values are found to be in the warm white range: 3260-4000 K.
ABSTRACT
El envejecimiento es la pérdida progresiva y gradual de nuestras funciones fisiológicas debido al paso de los años; conduce a una disminución de la salud y de la sensación de bienestar, aumentando el riesgo de contraer enfermedades y la probabilidad de muerte. En la actualidad hay cada vez más interés en el estudio del envejecimiento humano y surgen muchas preguntas, que necesitan respuestas que nos hagan comprender mejor el complejo proceso que lleva a la senectud. El envejecimiento es un proceso complejo y multifactorial que resulta de la acumulación de varios cambios funcionales y estéticos en el organismo que se producen en el tiempo. La piel también se ve afectada por estos cambios a través de factores intrínsecos y extrínsecos. La percepción de la edad, así como la belleza, dependen en gran medida de la exposición de la piel al medio ambiente. El envejecimiento intrínseco o el envejecimiento biológico es un proceso inevitable, genéticamente determinado, que progresa lentamente a medida que avanzamos en edad, pero puede acelerarse por factores ambientales. Los principales factores responsables del envejecimiento extrínseco son la exposición solar y el consumo de tabaco. No se trata solo, por tanto, de procesos celulares, sino que es también una respuesta al proceso de adaptación a los factores externos propios del medio ambiente. El objetivo de esta revisión es conocer mejor cuáles son los mecanismos responsables del envejecimiento intrínseco e identificarlos principales factores extrínsecos que influyen en el mismo, y cómo éstos pueden acelerar los procesos celulares biológicos (AU)
As human life expectancy increases, more interesting studies arise in order to better understand the complex process that aging involves. The perception of age is largely dependent on the appearance of exposed skin. Aging is a complex and multifactorial process resulting in the accumulation of several functional and aesthetic changes in an organism over time. The skin is also affected by these changes through intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Intrinsic aging orbiological aging is an inevitable process, genetically determined that progresses slowly over the years as we age. It can be accelerated by environmental factors. The main factors responsible for extrinsic aging are primally cumulative sun-exposure and tobacco smoke. Aging is not only about the cellular processes involved, but it is also a response to the adaptation of environmental stressors. The focus of this review is to better understand the mechanisms responsible for the intrinsic aging and to identify the principal extrinsic factors and how they can accelerate the cellular processes (AU)
Subject(s)
Humans , Skin Aging/physiology , Solar Radiation/adverse effects , Environmental Exposure/adverse effects , Risk FactorsABSTRACT
Blastomeres of the pre-implantation mouse embryo form trophectoderm and inner cell mass via a process that requires the transcription factors Tead4, Cdx2, Oct4 and Nanog. In mouse morulae cloned by somatic cell nuclear transfer, we observed that the trophectoderm transcription factor Cdx2 is expressed very differently at the protein level compared to time- and stage-matched fertilized counterparts. Protein levels of Cdx2 in cloned embryos appear 'erratic,' i.e. are widely distributed, when plotted as histograms. In contrast to Cdx2, protein levels of the upstream factor Tead4 and of inner cell mass transcription factors Oct4 and Nanog are similar in cloned and fertilized embryos. These observations suggest that trophectoderm formation is initiated but not maintained correctly in cloned mouse morulae, which is consistent with cloned blastocysts' limited implantation and post-implantation success. Because a cell's ability to differentiate is greatly enhanced if it is surrounded by more cells differentiating the same way, a concept designated community effect by Gurdon, we reasoned that the insufficient cell numbers often observed in cloned embryos might lead to premature Cdx2 expression and differentiation of blastomeres into trophectoderm. Therefore, we created larger cloned embryos by aggregating them at the 4-cell stage. Homologous aggregation stimulates expression of multiple signaling pathways' components and results in cloned embryos with levels of Cdx2 similar to fertilized embryos. Most of the resultant morulae and blastocysts consist of cells of all three founders, indicating that aggregation increases stability of all of the individual components. We conclude that the induction of pluripotency in cloned embryos is more efficient than previously assumed, and we propose that a minimum cell number is necessary to stabilize pluripotency and inhibit premature expression of Cdx2 in cloned mouse embryos.
