[Use of betamethasone in heart surgery]. / Impiego del betametasone in cardiochirurgia.

Clinical experience carried out on 88 high risk patients subjected to open-heart surgery with ECC is reported. The series was subdivided into two groups of patients (A and B) and to these were applied the same surgical and anaesthesiological approaches and the same extracorporeal perfusion technique. In Group B, however, a different method of myocardial protection was employed, in the form of preventive administration of pharmacological doses of betamethasone (3 mg/kg). The results point to a marked reduction in the incidence of postoperative complications in the heart, lungs and bloodstream in Group B compared with Group A.

[Presence of aflatoxin in products intended for human consumption: the choice of methods and the results obtained]. / La presenza di aflatossine in prodotti diretti al consumo umano: scelte dei metodi e risultati ottenuti.

The contamination of food resources by aflatoxin is a major problem for those countries where the meteorological and sanitary conditions allow the growth of Aspergillus Flavus and the contaminated food is not discarded because of the critical economical and social situation. However this phenomenon is also recorded in those Nations where the environmental and meteorological conditions are not favourable to Aspergillus Flavus growth. In Europe it has been possible to measure low aflatoxin (M1) concentrations in milk destined to humans. This kind of contamination may represent a source of chronic exposure to an important risk factor for hepatocancerogenesis. In Italy an appropriate law regulating the maximum aflatoxin concentration in the food destined to human nutrition is lacking, therefore the purpose of this paper is to contribute to the knowledge of a possible human exposure from the milk consumed in the Turin area (north western Italy). The results obtained display a lower (but more diffused) contamination in milk sampled after processing treatments (1.9-15 ppt), than in raw milk (5.3-94 ppt). Moreover it has been possible to show a positive relationship between dry animal feed and aflatoxin concentrations in milk.