Aim: We examined evidence on infective and non-infective endocarditis obtained from a database of 50,403 clinical autopsies performed at an Italian general hospital between January 1983 and December 2006. Materials and Methods: Out of 814 endocarditis cases, 409 were of infective endocarditis (IE) and 405 non-infective (NIE). The median age at the time of death was 78 years for those with IE and 83 for those with NIE. Data were collected on gender, clinical history, comorbidities, kind of affected valve (non-prosthetic/mechanical/biological), pathological features of endocarditis, endocarditis complications and microbiological agents. Results: The diagnosis of IE was frequently missed and these conditions were often complicated by cardiovascular events. IE was more common among patients with prior valve infection or cardiovascular surgery, while malignancies were frequent comorbidities of NIE. Conclusion: In general, we found several data that differ from those generally present in the scientific literature, and this could be explained by the fact that data on IE and NIE are generally obtained from surgical and clinical databases, while we analysed only autoptic cases.

Chlamydia trachomatis interaction with HR-HPV types has highlighted a central role in cervical cancer development. The aim of this study was to investigate HPV prevalence and genotypes distribution in women at risk for C. trachomatis infection and negative for intraepithelial lesion or malignancy.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly shifting from experimental pilots to mainstream clinical infrastructure, redefining how evidence, accountability, and ethics intersect in healthcare. This narrative review integrates insights from peer-reviewed studies and policy frameworks to examine seven cross-cutting aspects: bias and fairness, explainability, safety and quality, privacy and data protection, accountability and liability, human oversight, and procurement and deployment. Findings reveal persistent inequities driven by dataset bias and opaque design; the need for explainability tools that are validated, task-specific, and usable by clinicians; and the centrality of post-market surveillance for sustaining patient safety. Privacy-preserving methods such as federated learning and differential privacy show promise but demand rigorous validation and regulatory coherence. Emerging liability models advocate shared enterprise responsibility, while governance-by-design—embedding transparency, auditability, and equity across the AI lifecycle—appears most effective in balancing innovation with public trust. Ethical, legal, and technical safeguards must evolve together to ensure that AI augments, rather than replaces, clinical judgment and institutional accountability.

Aims and background: Malignant mesothelioma is a fatal cancer of increasing incidence in north-eastern Italy. Together with asbestos, the polyomavirus SV40 was hypothesized to contribute to the onset of malignant mesothelioma. To investigate the putative role of SV40 in the individual susceptibility to asbestos-induced malignant mesothelioma, we conducted a molecular epidemiological study on a series of malignant mesothelioma patients from an area in north-eastern Italy hyperendemic for malignant pleural mesothelioma. Methods and study design: We collected 63 mesothelioma samples from incidence cases of patients diagnosed with malignant pleural mesothelioma in the period 2009–2010. DNA was extracted from patients’ tissue biopsies using the BioRobot EZ1 Qiagen workstation. SV40 sequence detection and quantification was performed by specific real time PCR. The 74.6% of the 63 enrolled patients had a history of asbestos exposure. The epithelioid histotype was more prevalent in males (64.0%) and the mixed in females (61.5%) who showed significantly higher cancer co-morbidity (46.1% vs 12%, P = 0.005). SV40 was detected in 22% of MM tumors, with a low viral load. In SV40-positive patients, a threefold increased risk of asbestos exposure was observed, more evident in females (OR 4.32) than in males (OR 1.20). Conclusions: Our findings indicate that a high prevalence of SV40 was present in malignant mesothelioma incident cases from an area hyperendemic for malignant mesothelioma in north-eastern Italy. Although asbestos is considered the main risk factor in malignant mesothelioma onset, a role for SV40 could be hypothesized.

It is since the beginning of the so-called ‘digital revolution’ in the 1950s that technological tools have been developed to simplify and optimise traditional, time-consuming, and laborious anamnestic collection for many physicians. In recent years, more and more sophisticated ‘automated’ anamnestic collection systems have been developed, to the extent that they can actually enter daily clinical practice. This article not only provides a historical overview of the evolution of such tools, but also explores the ethical and medico-legal implications of the transition from traditional to digital anamnesis, including the protection of data confidentiality, the preservation of the communicative effectiveness of the doctor–patient dialogue and the safety of care in patients with poor digital and health literacy.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming criminal practice by industrialising deception, compressing attack cycles, and corroding evidentiary trust. This narrative review synthesises recent technical and criminological literature with institutional reporting to explain how generative models, predictive analytics, and automation enable convincing synthetic media, highly targeted social engineering, document forgery, identity synthesis, and adaptive evasion. Attention is given to the convergence with organised networks that use AI to coordinate logistics, mimic normal behaviour, and launder proceeds across platforms. Furthermore, a review of the grey literature was carried out to identify applied cases and to show how heterogeneous they are. Defensive efforts are advancing, yet detection remains brittle under laundering, increasing media realism, and adversarial adaptation. Regulatory and policy responses are surveyed across jurisdictions without claiming exhaustiveness; they appear fragmented and often lag operational innovation. The objective is pragmatic: to raise attacker costs and preserve information integrity while safeguarding fundamental rights and forensic reliability.