Cisplatin is the most common antineoplastic drug used for the therapy of solid tumours. To date, researchers have focused on the dosage to be administered for each specific tumour, mainly considering the local adverse effects. The aim of this study was to correlate the severity of the adverse effects with: i) the dosage of cisplatin; ii) the specific site of the tumour; iii) the association with other drugs; and iv) the symptoms. We analysed data from 123 patients with 11 different tumour classes undergoing therapy from 2007 to 2008 at St. Anna Hospital (Ferrara, Italy), using the Spearman non-parametric correlation index. Even though significant correlations were found among the variables, the overall results showed that the main factor influencing the severity of the adverse effects was the dosage of cisplatin administered.

Monodisperse mesoporous silica (mSiO₂) coated superparamagnetic iron oxide (Fe₃O₄@mSiO₂) nanoparticles (NPs) have been developed as a potential magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) T₂ contrast agent. To evaluate the effect of surface coating on MRI contrast efficiency, we examined the proton relaxivities of Fe₃O₄@mSiO₂ NPs with different coating thicknesses. It was found that the mSiO₂ coating has a significant impact on the efficiency of Fe₃O₄ NPs for MRI contrast enhancement. The efficiency increases with the thickness of mSiO₂ coating and is much higher than that of the commercial contrast agents. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) relaxometry of Fe₃O₄@mSiO₂ further revealed that mSiO₂ coating is partially permeable to water molecules and therefore induces the decrease of longitudinal relaxivity, r₁. Biocompatibility evaluation of various sized (ca. 35–95 nm) Fe₃O₄@mSiO₂ NPs was tested on OC‐k3 cells and the result showed that these particles have no negative impact on cell viability. The enhanced MRI efficiency of Fe₃O₄@mSiO₂ highlights these core–shell particles as highly efficient T₂ contrast agents with high biocompatibility. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Sensorineural hearing loss, primed by dysfunction or death of hair cells in the cochlea, is the main cause of severe or profound deafness. Piezoelectric materials work similarly to hair cells, namely, as mechano-electrical transducers. Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) films have demonstrated potential to replace the hair cell function, but the obtained piezoresponse was insufficient to stimulate effectively the auditory neurons. In this study, we reported on piezoelectric nanocomposites based on ultrafine PVDF fibers and barium titanate nanoparticles (BTNPs), as a strategy to improve the PVDF performance for this application. BTNP/PVDF fiber meshes were produced via rotating-disk electrospinning, up to 20/80 weight composition. The BTNP/PVDF fibers showed diameters ranging in 0.160–1.325 μm. Increasing collector velocity to 3000 rpm improved fiber alignment. The piezoelectric β phase of PVDF was well expressed following fabrication and the piezoelectric coefficients increased according to the BTNP weight ratio. The BTNP/PVDF fibers were not cytotoxic towards cochlear epithelial cells. Neural-like cells adhered to the composite fibers and, upon mechanical stimulation, showed enhanced viability. Using BTNP filler for PVDF matrices, in the form of aligned ultrafine fibers, increased the piezoresponse of PVDF transducers and favored neural cell contact. Piezoelectric nanostructured composites might find application in next generation cochlear implants