The purpose of this prospective case series was to determine the effectiveness of using a combination of the core decompression and injection of autologous conditioned plasma (ACP) for the treatment of symptomatic knee bone marrow lesions (BML), as well as to report on the preliminary clinical results based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and patient-reported outcomes (PROMs). Patients with OA-related BML who failed to improve on conservative treatment for three months underwent an identical procedure consisting of arthroscopy, core decompression, and the intraosseous injection of ACP and were followed up for 12 months. A statistically significant reduction in pain and an improvement in function, as measured by the Numeric Pain Rating Scale (NPRS) and Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS), was observed at one-week follow-up (8.3 ± 0.8 to 1.5 ± 1.0; p ≤ 0.001 and 33.4 ± 10.6 to 53.9 ± 13.6; p ≤ 0.001 respectively). After six weeks, weight-bearing was allowed, but the trend did not change—the NPRS continued to be low (average 1.4 on 12-month follow-up) and the total KOOS increased 44.6 points from the baseline (average 78.0 on 12-month follow-up). The Whole-Organ Magnetic Resonance Imaging Score improved from 66.1 ± 19.4 prior to surgery to 58.0 ± 15.9 (p < 0.001) after 3 months. In our study, there was no control group, randomisation was not performed, and the sample size was relatively small. A combination of core decompression and the intraosseous injection of ACP into the affected subchondral area proved to be a safe and effective procedure that provides rapid pain relief and a significant increase in joint function up to one year postoperatively.

The aim of this study was to compare the number of newly diagnosed, histopathologically confirmed cases of urothelial carcinoma before and during the COVID-19 pandemic at the Zagreb University Hospital Center. We retroactively collected and analyze...

Background/Objectives: Melanoma-associated antigen A3 (MAGEA3) is a cancer–testis antigen with potential biological and prognostic relevance in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). This study evaluated the association between OTI1H1-defined MAGEA3-directed immunoreactivity and clinicopathological characteristics and overall survival after pancreatic resection for PDAC. Methods: This retrospective cohort included 76 patients with histologically confirmed PDAC. Patients who died within 30 postoperative days were excluded, and all tumors were retrospectively restaged according to the eighth edition of the AJCC TNM classification. Immunohistochemical staining was assessed using the mouse monoclonal anti-MAGE3 antibody clone OTI1H1 (ab140678, Abcam) by a single experienced pathologist blinded to clinical and outcome data. The percentage of immunoreactive tumor cells was retained as the principal exploratory quantitative measure; the prespecified <10% versus ≥10% classification was evaluated secondarily. Results: Thirty-six of 76 tumors (47.4%) had ≥10% OTI1H1-reactive tumor cells. When staining was modeled continuously, the adjusted HR per 10-percentage-point increase was 0.969 (95% CI 0.898–1.046; p = 0.420). For the secondary binary classification, the adjusted HR for ≥10% versus <10% staining was 0.745 (95% CI 0.417–1.331; p = 0.320). No statistically clear association with overall survival was observed; however, the confidence intervals do not exclude potentially clinically relevant associations in either direction. Conclusions: No statistically clear association between OTI1H1-defined immunoreactivity and overall survival was observed in this cohort. Because OTI1H1 has known cross-reactivity with selected MAGE-A family proteins and no orthogonal molecular validation was performed, these findings should be interpreted as assay-specific and do not establish biological inactivity of MAGEA3 or related MAGE-A proteins.