SEMENTA A. R.

Background: Primary cutaneous mucinosis are a heterogeneous group of diseases characterized by the deposition of glycosaminoglycans in the dermis and the follicles. These diseases are rare in children therefore their diagnosis and management are still challenging. Joint involvement has been reported in patients with secondary cutaneous...

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Diffuse lipomatosis is a very rare condition, the nature of which, neoplastic or hamartomatous, has not yet been defined. We report the case of a small child with a right thoracic lesion of neonatal onset and extremely rapid growth, who successfully underwent complete surgical resection. The differential diagnoses and proper surgical treatment...

Background High-risk neuroblastomas (HR-NBs) are rare, aggressive pediatric cancers characterized by resistance to therapy and relapse in more than 30% of cases, despite using an aggressive therapeutic protocol including targeting of GD2. The mechanisms responsible for therapy resistance are unclear and might include the presence of GD2neg/low...

The similarity of stromal-like Wilms tumor (str-WT) cells with mesenchymal stem cells (MSC), suggests their relevant role in the interplay with immune cells in the tumor microenvironment. We investigated the interaction between str-WT cells and NK cells. We observed that str-WT cells expressed some major ligands for activating and inhibitory NK...

Purpose: To clarify the role of primary tumor resection in stage 4S neuroblastoma. Methods: We investigated a cohort of 172 infants diagnosed with stage 4S neuroblastoma between 1994 and 2013. Of 160 evaluable patients, 62 underwent upfront resection of the primary tumor and 98 did not. Results: Five-year progression-free and overall survival...

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Background: Neuroblastoma (NB) represents the most frequent and aggressive form of extracranial solid tumor of infants. Nucleolin (NCL) is a protein overexpressed and partially localized on the cell surface of tumor cells of adult cancers. Little is known about NCL and pediatric tumors and nothing is reported about cell surface NCL and NB....

Abnormal gut motility is a feature of several mitochondrial encephalomyopathies, and mutations in genes such as TYMP and POLG, have been linked to these rare diseases. The human genome encodes three DNA ligases, of which only one, ligase III (LIG3), has a mitochondrial splice variant and is crucial for mitochondrial health. We investigated the...