Laura Ardighieri
She holds a Medical Degree from the University of Brescia (Brescia, Italy). She works currently as a consultant pathologist, in particular in the field of Gynecopathology, at the ASST Spedali Civili of Brescia (Brescia, Italy). She has been a postdoctoral research fellow at Molecular Genetics of Female Reproductive Cancer Lab, Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, MD, USA) headed by Prof. Ie-Ming Shih. She has been participating on several research projects mainly focused on gynecological cancers as an author.
Effects of osteopathic manipulative therapy in patients with colorectal endometriosis
Alternative treatments have been used for colorectal endometriosis, between them Chinese medicine, acupuncture and more recently osteopathic manipulative therapy. The osteopathic manipulative therapy has been shown to reduce the chronic pain working on muscular contractions due to vicious analgesic positions. Dr. Daraï and collaborators conducted a prospective study evaluating the clinical impact of osteopathic manipulative therapy (OMT) on symptoms and quality of life for patients with symptomatic colorectal endometriosis. They enrolled a group of forty-six patients with colorectal endometriosis with a…
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Symptomatology and Surgical Perspective of Scar Endometriosis
Scar endometriosis is a rare condition that occurs as a consequence of iatrogenic implantation of endometrial tissue following cesarean section, vaginal delivery with episiotomy, laparotomy for hysterectomy, tubectomy, ectopic pregnancy surgeries, appendectomy, hernia repair sites; interestingly it can also occur in the needle tract after amniocentesis. The incidence is increasing because of increasing number of cesarean deliveries and laparoscopic procedures performed for treatment of pelvic endometriosis. Dr. Sumathy and colleagues conducted a retrospective study in a group of 16 patients who underwent…
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Unexpected "cancer-related" mutations in "non-cancerous" endometriosis: Do they predict aggressiveness?
A study supported by Endometriosis Foundation of America, reported by scientists from Johns Hopkins Medicine (Baltimore, USA) and the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada) have identified the molecular alterations of deep infiltrating endometriosis trough a wide exome sequencing (protein-coding genetic alphabet order) study and then validation through other highly sensitive digital genomics. Three main clinical forms of endometriosis are superficial peritoneal endometriosis, ovarian endometriosis, and deep infiltrating endometriosis (DIE). Even if endometriosis itself is a benign disease, shares some features with…
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Hypoxia induces molecular pathways favoring survival of endometriosis
Kuei-Yang Hsiao and colleagues from the Department of Physiology and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology College of Medicine, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, have investigated the molecular basis of this phenomenon. In particular, they found that hypoxia significantly suppressed the level of DUSP2 (dual-specificity phosphatase-2), an important phosphatase that specifically inactivates mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK). They demonstrated that downregulation of DUSP2 in endometriotic lesions induces the expression of IL-6, a cytokine which is typically elevated in endometriotic tissues…
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