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Anastasios Kallianos,1 Paul Zarogoulidis,2 Fotini Ampatzoglou,2 Georgia Trakada,2,3 Elias Gialafos,4 Georgia Pitsiou,2 Athanasia Pataka,2 Lemonia Veletza,2 Konstantinos Zarogoulidis,2 Wolfgang Hohenforst-Schmidt,5 Dimitris Petridis,6 Ioannis Kioumis,2 Aggeliki Rapti112nd Pulmonary Department, Sotiria Chest Diseases Hospital, Athens, 2Pulmonary Department-Oncology Unit, “G Papanikolaou” General Hospital, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, 3Pulmonary Laboratory, Therapeutic Clinic Alexandra Hospital, University of Athens, Athens, 4Heart Diseases Department Aiginitio Hospital, University of Athens, Athens, Greece; 5Medical Clinic I, “Fuerth” Hospital, University of Erlangen, Fuerth, Germany; 6Department of Food Technology, School of Food Technology and Nutrition, Alexander Technological Educational Institute, Thessaloniki, GreeceIntroduction: Pulmonary function tests (PFTs) do not always predict functional limitations during exercise in sarcoidosis. Cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) may facilitate the recognition of exercise intolerance in these patients.Aim: As relevant data in sarcoid patients are limited, the aim of the study reported here was to assess exercise capacity impairment during a maximal CPET and to evaluate potential correlations with PFT measurements and radiological stages of the disease.Method: A total of 83 sarcoid patients consecutively referred for evaluation of exertional dyspnea over a 3-year period were studied retrospectively with PFTs, including spirometry, diffusing capacity of the lung for carbon monoxide (DLCO) and lung volumes, and CPET using standard protocol. Patients were grouped according to their radiological stages: Stage I (n=43), Stages II–III (n=31), and Stage IV (n=9).Results: Forced expiratory volume in 1 second, forced vital capacity, and total lung capacity were mildly impaired only in Stage IV (means ± standard deviation: 72.44±28.00, 71.33±26.70, and 59.78±21.72, respectively), while DLCO was mildly and moderately reduced in Stages II–III and IV (72.68±14.13 and 51.22±18.50, respectively) and differed significantly between all stages (I vs II–III: P=0.003, I vs IV: P=0.003, and II–III vs IV: P=0.009). Exercise capacity (as expressed by peak oxygen consumption

Konstantinos Porpodis,1 Kalliopi Domvri,1 Paul Zarogoulidis,1 Dimitrios Petridis,2 Katerina Tsirgogianni,1 Antonis Papaioannou,1 Olga Hatzizisi,3 Ioannis Kioumis,1 Alexandra Liaka,3 Violeta Kikidaki,3 Sofia Lampaki,1 John Organtzis,1 Konstantinos Zarogoulidis1 1Pulmonary Department-Oncology Unit, G Papanikolaou General Hospital, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 2Department of Food Technology, School of Food Technology and Nutrition, Alexander Technological Educational Institute, 3Pulmonary Department, Immunology and Histocompatibility Laboratory, G Papanikolaou General Hospital, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece Background: A new approach to the treatment of COPD includes controlling inflammation because of its important role in exacerbation of the disease. Recently, roflumilast has been added as a therapeutic option for COPD. Roflumilast is an oral phosphodiesterase-4 inhibitor that targets inflammatory cells involved in triggering exacerbations of COPD. The objective of the current study was to evaluate roflumilast for its contribution to phagocytic activity in COPD patients.Methods: Twenty-one patients diagnosed with COPD received roflumilast once daily for 6 months in combination with fluticasone (an inhaled corticosteroid), salmeterol (a long-acting β2-agonist), and tiotropium (a long-acting muscarinic antagonist) or combinations of these agents. The main inclusion criterion was stable disease for at least the previous 30 days. Neutrophils and spirometric changes, ie, forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) and forced vital capacity (FVC), were measured in the COPD patients at indicated time points. The first sample was taken before receiving roflumilast, the second 3 months later, and the third after 6 months. Examination of defective phagocytosis was done by flow cytometry using a FagoFlowEx® kit. The statistical analysis was performed using Statistica software. Results: Our results indicate that phagocytic activity was increased after 3 and 6 months of treatment when compared with baseline (P

Georgia Pitsiou,1 Paul Zarogoulidis,1 Dimitris Petridis,2 Ioannis Kioumis,1 Sofia Lampaki,1 John Organtzis,1 Konstantinos Porpodis,1 Antonis Papaiwannou,1 Theodora Tsiouda,3 Wolfgang Hohenforst-Schmidt,4 Stylianos Kakolyris,5 Konstantinos Syrigos,6 Haidong Huang,7 Qiang Li,7 J Francis Turner,8 Konstantinos Zarogoulidis1 1Pulmonary Department, G Papanikolaou General Hospital, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 2Department of Food Technology, School of Food Technology and Nutrition, Alexander Technological Educational Institute, 3Internal Medicine Department, Thegenio Anticancer Hospital, Thessaloniki, Greece; 4II Medical Department, Coburg Regional Hospital, Coburg, Germany; 5Oncology Department, Sotiria Hospital of Chest Diseases, University of Athens, Athens, 6Oncology Department, University General Hospital of Alexandroupolis, Democritus University of Thrace, Alexandroupolis, Greece; 7Department of Respiratory Diseases, Changhai Hospital/First Affiliated Hospital of the Second Military Medical University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China; 8Division of Interventional Pulmonology and Medical Oncology, Cancer Treatment Centers of America, Western Regional Medical Center, Goodyear, AZ, USA Abstract: Pulmonary hypertension is a disease with severe consequences for the human body. There are several diseases and situations that induce pulmonary hypertension and are usually underdiagnosed. Treatments include conventional medical therapies and oral, inhaled, intravenous, and subcutaneous options. Depending on its severity, heart or lung transplant may also be an option. A possible novel treatment could be tyrosine kinase inhibitors. We conducted experiments with three jet nebulizers and three ultrasound nebulizers with erlotinib, gefitinib, and imatinib. Different residual cup designs and residual cup loadings were used in order to identify the best combination to produce droplets of less than 5 µm in mass median aerodynamic diameter. We found that gefitinib could not be transformed into a powder, so conversion to an aerosol form was not possible. Our experiments indicated that imatinib is superior to erlotinib with regard to small droplet size formation using both inhaled technologies (1.37 µm

Paul Zarogoulidis,1 Ioannis Kioumis,1 Sofia Lampaki,1 John Organtzis,1 Konstantinos Porpodis,1 Dionysios Spyratos,1 Georgia Pitsiou,1 Dimitris Petridis,2 Athanasia Pataka,1 Haidong Huang,3 Qiang Li,3 Lonny Yarmus,4 Wolfgang Hohenforst-Schmidt,5 Nikolaos Pezirkianidis,6 Konstantinos Zarogoulidis1 1Pulmonary Department-Oncology Unit, “G Papanikolaou” General Hospital, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece; 2Department of Food Technology, School of Food Technology and Nutrition, Alexander Technological Educational Institute, Thessaloniki, Greece; 3Department of Respiratory Diseases, Shanghai Hospital, II Military University Hospital, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China; 4Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA; 5II Medical Department, “Coburg” Regional Hospital, Coburg, Germany; 6Surgery Department, Private Cabinet, Serres, Greece Background: At this time, several antibiotics have been investigated as possibilities for aerosol administration, but local therapy has been found to be more efficient in several diseases. Materials and methods: The drugs linezolid (Zyvox), vancomycin (Voncon), and daptomycin (Cubicin) were tested with three jet nebulizers with seven different residual cups and different loadings. Moreover, three ultrasound nebulizers were again tested with these drugs, with different loadings and mouthpiece attachments. Results: When drugs are combined with particular cup designs, they significantly lower the droplet size to 1.60 and 1.80 µm, which represents the best combination of Zyvox and cup G and Cubicin and cup D, respectively. Cup design D is suggested as the most effective cup for lowering the droplet size (2.30 µm) when considering a higher loading level (8 mL). Conclusion: Modification of current drugs from dry powder to solution is possible, and the residual cup design plays the most important role in droplet size production when the nebulization systems have the same properties. Keywords: vancomycin, linezolid, daptomycin, aerosol, jet nebulizers, ultrasound nebulizers

Dimitris Petridis,1 Paul Zarogoulidis,2,3 Anastasios Kallianos,4 Ioannis Kioumis,2 Georgia Trakada,5 Dionysios Spyratos,2 Antonis Papaiwannou,2 Konstantinos Porpodis,2 Haidong Huang,6 Aggeliki Rapti,4 Wolfgang Hohenforst-Schmidt,7 Konstantinos Zarogoulidis2 1Department of Food Technology, Alexander Technological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece; 2Pulmonary Department, "G Papanikolaou" General Hospital, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece; 3Department of Interventional Pneumology, Ruhrlandklinik, West German Lung Center, University Hospital, University Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany; 42nd Pulmonary Department, "Sotiria" Hospital for Chest Diseases, Athens, Greece; 5Department of Clinical Therapeutics, Division of Pneumonology, Medical School, National University of Athens, Athens, Greece; 6Department of Respiratory Diseases, Changhai Hospital/First Affiliated Hospital of the Second Military Medical University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China; 7II Medical Department, "Coburg" Regional Clinic, University of Wüerzburg, Coburg, Germany Background: Influenza A H1N1 and H3N2 are two influenza waves that have been identified in past years. Methods: Data from 77 inpatients from three tertiary hospitals were included and statistical analysis was performed in three different clusters. Results: Thirty-four patients (44.2%) had respiratory distress upon admission, 31.2% had a smoking history or were active smokers, 37.7% manifested disease symptoms, and 7.8% were obese (body mass index >41). The mean age of patients was 51.1 years. Cough was the most common symptom observed in 77.9% of the patients, accompanied by sputum production (51.9%) and fatigue (42.9%). Hemoptysis and vomiting were rarely recorded in the patients (9.1% and 16.9%, respectively). Oseltamivir administration varied between 0 and 10 days, giving a mean value of 2.2 days. In particular, 19 patients received no drug, 31 patients received drug for only for 1 day, 19 patients for 5 days, and 8 patients from 2 to 10 days. Conclusion: Clusters of symptoms can be used to identify different types of influenza and disease severity. Patients with vaccination had pneumonia, whereas patients without vaccination had influenza A. Patients more than 54.5 years old had H3N2 and patients less than 54.5 years had H1N1. White blood cell count values increased from normal to elevated in H3N2 patients but still remained abnormal in lower tract infection and H1N1 patients. Keywords: H3N2, H1N1, influenza outbreak, respiratory infection, vaccination

The magnetic properties of gamma-F[e.sub.2][O.sub.3] ferromagnetic nanoparticles embedded in a multiblock poly(ether-ester) copolymer is investigated by static magnetization and ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) measurements at two different dispersion states. At low temperatures, the dc magnetization and FMR measurements vary considerably for the two nanocomposites, indicating essential differences in their ground state, related to the different morphology of the samples and the concomitant variation of interparticle interactions.

Experiments were conducted to obtain the synthesis of 'side chain' functionalized MCM-41 inorganic-organic hybrids through the exchange method of the template with the cationic organosiloxanes. The results show that the derivative obtained retained the hexagonal symmetry of the original MCM-41 material and the final solids exhibit rather small BET surface areas and microporosity.

Research describing the process of assessing the production and quality of smoked tuna is presented. Particular attention is given to ways in which brining times affect the lipid oxidation and protein denaturation processes in smoked tuna.

A new study investigates the acidification activity, gel firmness and aroma profiles of several isolates from traditional Greek yogurts in order to provide suitable natural starters for specific purposes.

Consumer preference for cheese is greatly affected by its texture but researchers have been unable to correlate sensory textual attributes with objective measurements. A new study investigates the possibility of defining certain mechanical criteria, measured by a texturometer, that can be reliably related to chemical and sensory textual attributes of a variety of French cheeses. The study shows that the main objective variables to characterize cheese texture are dry matter content and resistance to force compression, which correlate with sensory attributes such as hardness, adhesiveness and cohesiveness.

Peach jam texture is significantly affected by the composition of the commercial glucose syrups used in preparing the jams. The use of 100% isoglucose syrup makes the jam very firm, and the use of 100% maltose syrup makes it very soft. Three weeks are required for the samples to stabilize. Principal Component Analysis indicates that the jams can be classified on the basis of their mechanical and textural properties. An Instron machine may be used to analyze the texture development of peach jam samples for varying syrup compositions.

Instrumental and sensory tests were conducted to evaluate the textural characteristics of teleme cheese and to compare the textural behavior of traditional from ultrafiltered (UF)-teleme cheeses. Texture measurements failed to discriminate the cheeses, while sensory evaluations characterized the cheeses by different attributes. However, these attributes were exclusive to each cheese type, with the traditional cheeses characterized by springiness, lumpiness and fat content and the UF-cheeses by adhesiveness, pH, water solubility and noncasein nitrogen content.

The electrochemical behavior of sodium montmorillonite intercalated with (Fe(bpy)3)2Fe(CN)6 and (MV)3(Fe(CN)6)2 was investigated. Two intercalation complexes were generated depending on the quantities of reactants participating in the reaction. The surfaces of montmorillonite films were proven to possess the ability to assemble electroactive cationic and anionic pairs such as Fe(chel)3(super 2+)/Fe(CN)6(super 4-) and MV(super 2+)/Fe(CN)6(super 4-).