Important blood biomarkers in NEC

Severe bacterial infections have a higher incidence in the neonatal period than at any other pediatric age. Incidence is even higher in premature babies than in term newborns, and severity is increased in the absence of early diagnosis and treatment. By contrast, clinical signs are nonspecific and sometimes trivial, and biomarkers perform poorly during the first 24 hours of infection. For decades, this has led to having too many children treated for extended periods with broad-spectrum antibiotics. Today, the challenge is to prescribe antibiotics in a targeted way, by identifying truly infected newborns...

Breast milk is the ideal food for the premature and mature babies and has undoubtedly immediate and ultimate benefits. Among other things, it protects against infections, reduces the risk of necrotizing enterocolitis and retinopathy of the premature babies, improves neurodevelopmental outcome, and reduces the risk of obesity and metabolic syndrome later in life. In the present study, breast milk will be studied with all the available omics technologies. More specifically, functional genomics, comparative genomics, transcriptomics, sequencing, proteomics, and metabolomics will be performed...

Over the last decade, the use of proteomics in the setting of prematurity has increased and has enabled researchers to successfully identify biomarkers for an array of associated morbidities. The objective of this scoping review was to identify the existing literature, as well as any knowledge gaps related to proteomic biomarker discoveries in the setting of prematurity. A scoping review was conducted using PubMed, Embase and Medline databases following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines...

The burden of late onset sepsis (LOS) and necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) remains high for newborns in low- and high-income countries. Very preterm born infants born below 32 weeks gestation are at highest risk because their immune system is not yet adapted to ex-utero life, providing intensive care frequently compromises their skin or mucosa and they require a long duration of hospital stay. An epidemiological overview is difficult to provide because there is no mutually accepted definition available for either LOS or NEC...

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) are known to play an important role in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) by triggering innate and adaptive immune responses. The molecular mechanisms responsible for their formation in SLE are still unclear. In this study, we aim to characterize the role of the receptor-interacting protein kinase-1 (RIPK1), a homologous serine/threonine kinase previously implicated in the regulation of necroptosis and tissue injury, in decreasing neutrophil death and formation of NETs, and to investigate the clinical implications of RIPK1 in SLE...

STUDY PURPOSE: To provide reference values for nucleated red blood cells and serum lactate concentrations in very and extremely low birth weight (VLBW/ELBW) infants in the first week of life. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Retrospective data analysis of serial, daily measurements of NRBC counts and serum lactate during the first 6days of life in VLBW and ELBW infants. RESULTS: In total, 250 infants<1500g were included in this study. Intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR) was seen in 87 (34...

A new tumor-associated antigen, MN, has been shown to be expressed in virtually all cervical carcinomas and the majority of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia, but not in normal cervices (S. Y. Liao et al., Am. J. Pathol., 145: 598-609, 1994). Therefore, we postulated that the exfoliative cells in cervical Papanicolaou (Pap) smears would reflect the MN immunoreactivity seen in the tissue sections, and high levels of MN expression in the exfoliative cells would indicate the presence of dysplasia in the cervix...