Neurodegenerative diseases affect millions of people worldwide, yet there are currently no effective treatments. Because risk of neurodegenerative disease substantially increases with age, greater life expectancy with a concomitant aging population means more individuals will be affected in the coming decades. Thus, there is an urgent need for understanding the mechanisms driving neurodegenerative diseases in order to develop improved treatment strategies. Inflammation in the nervous system, termed “neuroinflammation,” has become increasingly recognized as being associated with neurodegenerative diseases. Early attention focused primarily on morphological changes in astrocytes and microglia; however, brain and CNS resident mast cells are now receiving attention as a result of being “first responders” to injury. Mast cells also exert profound effects on their microenvironment and neighboring cells including behavior and/or activation of astrocytes, microglia, and neurons, which, in turn, are implicated in neuroinflammation, neurogenesis and neurodegeneration. Mast cells also affect disruption/permeability of the blood brain barrier enabling toxin and immune cell entry exacerbating an inflammatory microenvironment. Here, we discuss the roles of mast cells in neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration with a focus on development and progression of four prominent neurodegenerative diseases: Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, and Huntington’s Disease.

We report a systematic review of moderators of CBT efficacy for pediatric OCD relative to other treatments. CENTRAL, MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, and PsycINFO were searched for RCTs reporting on effect moderation for CBT outcomes. Five studies (N = 365) examined 17 variables with three significant moderators identified. Compared to pill-placebo, CBT monotherapy was not effective for children with a family history of OCD but was for those without a family history. For children with a family history, CBT plus sertraline efficacy was attenuated but remained significant. For children with tics, CBT but not sertraline remained superior to pill-placebo. For non-responders to initial treatment with CBT, continuing CBT was inferior to commencing sertraline for those with tics but was not different for those without tics. A supplementary review identified older age, symptom and impairment severity, co-morbidity and family accommodation as consistent predictors of a poorer outcome to CBT. Current evidence for moderation effects is post-hoc, from single RCTs, has small Ns and requires replication. The review identifies family history of OCD and the presence of tics as factors requiring further examination in properly conducted trials and about which clinicians need to show care in their treatment recommendations.

Research has established a direct link between the plasma level of D-dimer and underlying malignancy. Ddimer has a strong association with the detection and prognosis of several cancers. For these reasons, this literature review aimed to evaluate the usefulness of elevated D-dimer levels in the initial screening of cancer, cancer recurrence surveillance, and for use as a cancer prognostic tool. A search of PubMed up to February 1, 2021, was carried out by reviewers. This literature review includes studies investigating the relationship between pretreatment plasma D-dimer levels and cancer. From the findings, pretreatment Ddimer levels can assist with cancer screening and prognosis assessment. Pretreatment plasma D-dimer levels can function as an effective cancer recurrence control. Elevated pre-treatment plasma D-dimer concentration is valuable in facilitating cancer screening, predicting an augmented risk of cancer recurrence, and anticipating a worse cancer prognosis.

Sepsis still remains a big challenge in patients admitted to intensive care units (ICUs) despite stellar advances made in the field of medicine. We can achieve better clinical outcomes in patients by diagnosing sepsis earlier. Procalcitonin (PCT), an inflammatory biomarker, has shown promising results in this regard. Therefore, this systematic review was done to assess the use of PCT in diagnosing and predicting severe outcomes in patients admitted to ICU and to assess if introducing PCT as a routine biochemical tool in hospitals would be helpful to achieve better clinical course in ICU patients.To identify relevant articles, we searched PubMed, Google Scholar, and references of included articles. Eligible studies were identified by two investigators independently and data were extracted. Original articles that evaluated the diagnostic and prognostic value of serum PCT levels in predicting sepsis, the severity of sepsis, and mortality among adult patients admitted to ICU were included in this study. A total of 2,063 citations were identified by the search, among which 10 studies (five prospective cohort, three retrospective cohort, one cross-sectional, and one case-control study) met the inclusion criteria. Most studies showed moderate-to-low risk of bias which was evaluated using the Quality in Prognosis Studies tool. All studies showed a positive correlation between initial PCT levels and detecting mortality resulting from sepsis, six studies found PCT helpful in detecting sepsis, and four studies evaluated the role of PCT in detecting severity in patients with sepsis. One study found area under the curve of serum PCT level for predicting 28day mortality to be 0.82 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.70-0.94; p < 0.001) in adults and 0.83 (95% CI: 0.73-0.92; p < 0.001) in the elderly having an optimal cut-off level of serum PCT of 0.2 ng/mL in both the adult and elderly groups, with a sensitivity of 81 and 75% and specificity of 81.7 and 80.4%, respectively.PCT has shown promising results in detecting sepsis and its clinical course. For early diagnosis and management of sepsis, severe sepsis, and mortality in patients admitted to the ICU for a more favorable clinical outcome, PCT can be used.

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