Early detection of colorectal cancer (CRC) is the most important factor in deciding its prognosis, so the need to develop an accurate screening test is a must. P-element induced wimpy testis (PIWI) RNA-823 (piR-823) is one of the first piRNAs recognized to be linked to malignancy. We aimed to investigate the expression levels of piR-823 in both serum and tissues of colorectal cancer patients and the ability to use its serum level as a non-invasive diagnostic biomarker to detect colorectal cancer. We determined piR-823 expression levels in 84 serum samples of CRC patients, 75 serum samples of healthy controls, and biological specimens obtained from the 84 patients with colorectal cancer from both the tumor tissues and the normal neighboring tissues using quantitative real-time reverse transcriptase-PCR. We showed that piR-823 had significantly higher serum and tissue expression levels in CRC patients compared to the controls. We observed a significant positive correlation between piR-823 serum levels and the staging of CRC, with significantly higher levels exhibiting advanced stages of CRC (III and IV). This translates into poorer differentiation and lymph node metastasis. The receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC curve) test showed 83.3% sensitivity and 89.3% specificity at a cut-off value of >5.98-fold change, with an area under the curve of 0.933 (p < 0.0001) concerning the ability of piR-823 in diagnosing patients with colorectal carcinoma. piR-823 expression is upregulated in colorectal cancer patients’ serum and tissues, and it can be used as a diagnostic noninvasive biomarker for CRC.

Background: COVID-19 pneumonia patients have variant prognosis and mortality. A great concern should be given to the clinical and imaging characteristics of those patients, As a result, the aim of current research was to identify clinical, laboratory, and chest computed tomography results in confirmed COVID -19 patients, as well as to compare severe patients to non-severe groups. Methods: In a retrospective cross-sectional analysis, 169 confirmed COVID-19 individuals were enrolled. Computerized medical reports and images were used. Results: The enrolled individuals were classified into asymptomatic: 2 patients (1.2%), mild: 33 patients (19.5%), moderate: 103 patients (60.9%) and severe: 31 patients (18.3%). Fever, cough, shortness of breath were significantly more frequent symptoms in severely infected COVID patients (p=0.001). Moreover, a highly significant decrease in SPO2(p=0.00), a remarkable increase in WBCs (p=0.002), and a significant increase in CRP and Ferritin were detected in that group (p=0.00). The chest "high resolution computed tomography findings were associated with multiple lesions in both lungs and more GGO with consolidation (p<0.05). Crazy pavement, septal thickening, and subpleural thickening were also significantly presented in severe COVID pneumonia rather than other groups (p<0.05). Conclusion: Occurrence of clinical factors including aging, cough, fever, dyspnea, comorbidities, hypoxemia, increased WBCs, increased CRP, and ferritin were more prevalent in severe COVID-19 pneumonia. GGO with consolidation and Septal thickening were independent predictors of COVID pneumonia severity findings in HRCT.The use of computed tomography in the diagnosis and assessment of illness severity is crucial.

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