TY  - JOUR
A1  - Wiegering, V.
A1  - Schlegel, P. G.
A1  - Winkler, B.
A1  - Lazarus, M.
A1  - Wirth, C.
A1  - Ernestus, K.
A1  - Walles, T.
A1  - Liese, J.
T1  - Persisting Cough as the Single Presenting Symptom of an Intrathoracic Tumor in a Nine-Month-Old Child with Adenovirus Airway Infection
JF  - Journal of Case Reports and Studies
N2  - We report on a nine-month-old girl who presented with persisting cough, and diminished ventilation of the left hemithorax. Viral pneumonia was suspected after Adenovirus detection by PCR, but chest X-rays showed a persistent shadowing of the left hemithorax and persistent coughing despite clinical improvement. Because of the discrepancy between clinical and radiological signs further investigations by ultrasound and CT scan were performed, which visualized an intrathroracic tumor. Histopathology confirmed diagnosis of a teratoma.

This case highlights the need for careful evaluation by the treating physicians. If the chest X-ray provides a discrepancy to the clinical findings or persistent pathologies exist, differential diagnosis should be discussed and further diagnostics be performed.
KW  - tumor
KW  - children
Y1  - 2015
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-125536
VL  - 3
IS  - 2
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Radakovic, D.
A1  - Reboredo, J.
A1  - Helm, M.
A1  - Weigel, T.
A1  - Schürlein, S.
A1  - Kupczyk, E.
A1  - Leyh, R. G.
A1  - Walles, H.
A1  - Hansmann, J.
T1  - A multilayered electrospun graft as vascular access for hemodialysis
JF  - PLoS ONE
N2  - Despite medical achievements, the number of patients with end-stage kidney disease keeps steadily raising, thereby entailing a high number of surgical and interventional procedures to establish and maintain arteriovenous vascular access for hemodialysis. Due to vascular disease, aneurysms or infection, the preferred access—an autogenous arteriovenous fistula—is not always available and appropriate. Moreover, when replacing small diameter blood vessels, synthetic vascular grafts possess well-known disadvantages. A continuous multilayered gradient electrospinning was used to produce vascular grafts made of collagen type I nanofibers on luminal and adventitial graft side, and poly-ɛ-caprolactone as medial layer. Therefore, a custom-made electrospinner with robust environmental control was developed. The morphology of electrospun grafts was characterized by scanning electron microscopy and measurement of mechanical properties. Human microvascular endothelial cells were cultured in the graft under static culture conditions and compared to cultures obtained from dynamic continuous flow bioreactors. Immunofluorescent analysis showed that endothelial cells form a continuous luminal layer and functional characteristics were confirmed by uptake of acetylated low-density-lipoprotein. Incorporation of vancomycin and gentamicin to the medial graft layer allowed antimicrobial inhibition without exhibiting an adverse impact on cell viability. Most striking a physiological hemocompatibility was achieved for the multilayered grafts.
KW  - collagens
KW  - polymers
KW  - vascular surgery
KW  - endothelial cells
KW  - cell cultures
KW  - blood
KW  - antibiotics
KW  - scanning electron microscopy
Y1  - 2017
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-159102
VL  - 12
IS  - 10
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Fahmy-Garcia, Shorouk
A1  - Farrell, Eric
A1  - Witte-Bouma, Janneke
A1  - Robbesom-van den Berge, Iris
A1  - Suarez, Melva
A1  - Mumcuoglu, Didem
A1  - Walles, Heike
A1  - Kluijtmans, Sebastiaan G. J. M.
A1  - van der Eerden, Bram C. J.
A1  - van Osch, Gerjo J. V. M.
A1  - van Leeuwen, Johannes P. T. M.
A1  - van Driel, Marjolein
T1  - Follistatin Effects in Migration, Vascularization, and Osteogenesis in vitro and Bone Repair in vivo
JF  - Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology
N2  - The use of biomaterials and signaling molecules to induce bone formation is a promising approach in the field of bone tissue engineering. Follistatin (FST) is a glycoprotein able to bind irreversibly to activin A, a protein that has been reported to inhibit bone formation. We investigated the effect of FST in critical processes for bone repair, such as cell recruitment, osteogenesis and vascularization, and ultimately its use for bone tissue engineering. In vitro, FST promoted mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) and endothelial cell (EC) migration as well as essential steps in the formation and expansion of the vasculature such as EC tube-formation and sprouting. FST did not enhance osteogenic differentiation of MSCs, but increased committed osteoblast mineralization. In vivo, FST was loaded in an in situ gelling formulation made by alginate and recombinant collagen-based peptide microspheres and implanted in a rat calvarial defect model. Two FST variants (FST288 and FST315) with major differences in their affinity to cell-surface proteoglycans, which may influence their effect upon in vivo bone repair, were tested. In vitro, most of the loaded FST315 was released over 4 weeks, contrary to FST288, which was mostly retained in the biomaterial. However, none of the FST variants improved in vivo bone healing compared to control. These results demonstrate that FST enhances crucial processes needed for bone repair. Further studies need to investigate the optimal FST carrier for bone regeneration.
KW  - follistatin 315 (FST315)
KW  - follistatin 288 (FST288)
KW  - migration
KW  - vascularization
KW  - osteogenesis
KW  - injectable in situ gelling slow release system
KW  - bone tissue engineering
KW  - regenerative medicine
Y1  - 2019
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-227617
VL  - 7
ER  -