Marco Fiore

Nerve growth factor (NGF) plays a dual role both in inflammatory states and cancer, acting both as a pro-inflammatory and oncogenic factor and as an anti-inflammatory and pro-apoptotic mediator in a context-dependent way based on the signaling networks and its interaction with diverse cellular components within the microenvironment. This report aims to provide a summary and subsequent review of the literature on the role of NGF in regulating the inflammatory microenvironment and tumor cell growth, survival, and death. The role of NGF in inflammation and tumorigenesis as a component of the inflammatory system, its interaction with the various components of the respective microenvironments, its ability to cause epigenetic changes, and its role in the treatment of cancer have been highlighted in this paper.

Urinalysis is commonly used as a screening tool for kidney disease. In many cases, the dipstick urine assay includes the assessment of albumin/protein and creatinine; consequently, the value of their ratio is available on the urine section report. Identification of albuminuria/proteinuria at early stages is an important issue to prevent or at least delay the onset of chronic kidney disease (CKD), kidney failure, and the progression of cardiovascular damage linked to the kidney’s loss of function. Sensitive and specific diagnostic methods are required for the assessment of such an important biomarker: urine albumin, creatinine, and their ratio (ACR) measured with quantitative assays are considered the gold standard. Routine dipstick methods (more rapid and at a lower cost) are intended for wide population screening. The aim of our study was to verify the reliability of an automated urinalysis dipstick method by comparing the results with the quantitative test of creatinine and albumin performed on a clinical chemistry platform. The first-morning voids of 249 patients who arrived from different departments were analyzed in the Central Laboratory of the University Hospital Policlinico Umberto I in Rome. We found a good correlation between the two assays, even though we observed that the dipstick assessment tends to overestimate the ACR’s value, disclosing a higher number of false positives if compared to the reference method. As an important novelty in this study, we analyzed our data considering age (starting from pediatric to geriatric patients) and sex as variables for a sub-stratification of the participants. Our results show that positive values need to be confirmed with quantitative methods, especially in women and younger people, and that from samples that resulted as diluted at the dipstick assay, the ACR’s values can be obtained if they are reanalyzed with quantitative assays. Moreover, patients with microalbuminuria (ACR 30–300 mg/g) or severe albumin urinary excretion (ACR > 300 mg/g) should be reanalyzed using quantitative methods to obtain a more reliable calculation of the ACR.