Background: The aim of the study was to examine the relationship among patients’ characteristics, intraoperative pathology and pre/post-operative symptoms in a cohort of patients undergoing arthroscopic partial meniscectomy for symptomatic meniscal tears. Methods: Clinical data were collected (age, sex, body mass index, time to surgery, trauma). Intraoperative cartilage pathology was assessed with Outerbridge score. Meniscal tears were graded with the ISAKOS classification. Synovial inflammation was scored using the Macro-score. Patient symptoms were assessed pre/post-operatively using the KOOS instrument. Results: In the series of 109 patients (median age 47 years), 50% of the meniscal tears were traumatic; 85% of patients showed mild to moderate synovitis; 52 (47.7%) patients had multiple cartilage defects and 31 (28.4%) exhibited a single focal chondral lesion. Outerbridge scores significantly correlated with patient age, BMI and synovial inflammation. There was a correlation between severity of chondral pathology and high-grade synovial hyperplasia. Pre-operative KOOS correlated with BMI, meniscal degenerative changes and symptom duration. Obesity, time to surgery, presence of high-grade synovial hyperplasia and high-grade cartilage lesions were independent predictors of worse post-operative pain and function. Conclusion: We demonstrated that pre-operative symptoms and post-operative outcomes correlate with synovitis severity and cartilage pathology, particularly in old and obese patients that underwent arthroscopic partial meniscectomy. Importantly, patients with a degenerative meniscal pattern and with longer time to surgery experienced more severe cartilage damage and, consequentially, pain and dysfunction. These findings are fundamental to identify patients suitable for earlier interventions.

Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDA) is an aggressive malignancy with a very poor outcome. Although chemotherapy (CT) treatment has poor efficacy, it can enhance tumor immunogenicity. Tumor-Associated Antigens (TAA) are self-proteins that are overexpressed in tumors that may induce antibody production and can be PDA theranostic targets. However, the prognostic value of TAA-antibody association as Circulating Immune Complexes (CIC) has not yet been elucidated, mainly due to the lack of techniques that lead to their identification. In this study, we show a novel method to separate IgG, IgM, and IgA CIC from sera to use them as prognostic biomarkers of CT response. The PDA Immune-Complexome (IC) was identified using a LTQ-Orbitrap mass spectrometer followed by computational analysis. The analysis of the IC of 37 PDA patients before and after CT revealed differential associated antigens (DAA) for each immunoglobulin class. Our method identified different PDA-specific CIC in patients that were associated with poor prognosis patients. Finally, CIC levels were significantly modified by CT suggesting that they can be used as effective prognostic biomarkers to follow CT response in PDA patients.

In industrialized countries, improvements have been made in both maternal and newborn health. While attention to antenatal care is increasing, excessive medicalization is also becoming more common.