Anita Lukić

Bone morphogenetic proteins and receptors are over-expressed in bone-marrow cells of multiple myeloma patients and support myeloma cells by inducing ID genes

We assessed the expression pattern and clinical relevance of BMPs and related molecules in multiple myeloma (MM). MM bone-marrow samples (n=32) had increased BMP4, BMP6, ACVR1 and ACVR2A, and decreased NOG expression compared with controls (n=15), with BMP6 having the highest sensitivity/specificity. Within MM bone-marrow, the source of BMPs was mainly CD138(+) plasma-cell population, and BMP6 and ACVR1 expression correlated with plasma-cell percentage. Using myeloma cell lines NCI H929 and Thiel we showed that BMPs induced ID1, ID2 and IL6, and suppressed CDKN1A and BAX gene expression, and BAX protein expression. Finally, BMPs partially protected myeloma cells from bortezomib- and TRAIL-induced apoptosis. We concluded that BMPs may be involved in MM pathophysiology and serve as myeloma cell biomarkers.

A Population-Based Prospective 24-Month Study of Stroke: Incidence and 30-Day Case-Fatality Rates of First-Ever Strokes in Croatia

Background: In Central/Eastern European countries, cerebrovascular diseases are among the leading causes of mortality. We aimed to determine the incidence of first-ever stroke (FES) in the north-western part of Croatia. Methods: A population-based prospective incidence study was conducted between July 1, 2007, and June 30, 2009. Cases were sought from multiple overlapping sources. Incidence rates by stroke type and gender were calculated. Results: A total of 1,487 events were recorded, 1,017 of which were FESs. European age-adjusted incidence rates (per 100,000 population) were: total FESs 223.6 [women/men rate ratio (w/m RR) = 0.65 (95% CI 0.57–0.73)]; ischemic stroke 162.4 (w/m RR = 0.65, 0.56–0.76); intracerebral hemorrhage 28.4 (w/m RR = 0.44, 0.30–0.63); subarachnoid hemorrhage 7.2 (w/m RR = 1.18, 0.55–2.54); unknown etiology 25.5 (w/m RR = 0.78, 0.54–1.14). Adjusted incidence rates of ischemic strokes by subtype were: cardioembolic 52.9 (w/m RR = 0.77, 0.59–0.99); large-artery atherosclerosis 14.4 (w/m RR = 0.22, 0.13–0.38); small-artery occlusion 24.5 (w/m RR = 0.53, 0.37–0.77) and ‘other or uncertain causes’ 70.6 (w/m RR = 0.77, 0.62–0.97). Thirty-day case-fatality rate was 23.5% overall and 17.1% for ischemic stroke. Conclusions: The incidence of FES and 30-day mortality of patients with ischemic strokes in the studied population is higher than in Western European countries.

Antiplatelet Usage Impacts Clot Density in Acute Anterior Circulation Ischemic Stroke

We explored whether clot density in middle cerebral artery (MCA) occlusion is related to clinical variables, stroke etiology, blood constituents, and prestroke medication. We performed a retrospective chart review of patients with acute ischemic stroke of the anterior circulation admitted to two Central European stroke centers. The acquisition of non-contrast enhanced CT (NECT) and CT angiography (CTA) within 4.5 h of symptom onset was obligatory. We assessed the site of MCA occlusion as well as density, area, and length of the clot in 150 patients. The Hounsfield unit values for the clot were divided with contralateral MCA segment to yield relative Hounsfield Unit ratio (rHU). The site of the vessel occlusion (M1 vs. M2) and antiplatelet usage, but not stroke etiology, significantly influenced rHU. We found an inverse correlation of rHU with erythrocyte count (p < 0.001). The multivariate analysis revealed that a higher rHU (i.e., clot being more hyperdense) was more likely with the use of antiplatelets (OR 4.24, CI 1.10–16.31, p = 0.036). Erythrocyte (OR 0.18, CI 0.05–0.55, p = 0.003), and thrombocyte counts (OR 0.99, CI 0.98–0.99, p = 0.029) were associated with odds for more hypodense clots (lower rHU). Our study disclosed that antiplatelet therapy impacts the composition of intracranial clots of the anterior circulation.

Education first: Content analysis of #erc15prague tweets.

Twitter, as one of the most prominent social media has been idely used to cover conferences of a number of medical fields. ince no data is available on the use of Twitter in the context of a esuscitation meeting, we focused on the Twitter activity about the esuscitation 2015 – The Guidelines Congress. We downloaded 2149 tweets containing hashtag #erc15prague the official keyword) and posted between October 28 and ovember 1, 2015. The analyses were performed using the R proramming language,1 while the tweet’s subjects were categorised ased on a previously published sheme.2 The aforementioned tweets were created by 451 user accounts ith one third being original content (n = 714, by 114 users), while he others were retweets. The most popular tweet (69 retweets nd 30 favourites) was by @ANDYL0CKY: “Without good education verything else would be futile #erc15prague”. Following the exploratory analysis, our first text mining step as to create a word cloud of the most frequent words. As seen n Fig. 1A, quite prominent words were, e.g. “cpr”, “competition”,

Regional North American Annual Meeting of the World Federation of Neurology – Research Group on Neuroepidemiology, Louisiana State University, New Orleans, La., April 27, 2012

No. 08:00 AM Registration Opens 08:30 AM Poster Set up and Viewing P1–P3