Recent Publications

An increased serum glucose level is a common finding among patients admitted to hospital with acute illness, including the intensive care unit (ICU), even without a history of previous diabetes mellitus (DM). Glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) is not only a diagnostic tool for DM but may also has prognostic value for diabetic and non-diabetic populations.

To assess the relationship between HbA1c level on admission and clinical outcome among patients admitted to the ICU due to cardiopulmonary disorders with hyperglycemia.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) affects different people in different ways. Most infected people develop mild to moderate illness and recover without hospitalization. This case report presents a patient who had difficulty eradicating the corona virus due to being treated with rituximab, which depletes B lymphocytes and therefore disables the production of neutralizing antibodies.

T cells are critical in the pathogenesis of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in that they secrete inflammatory cytokines, help autoantibody production, and form autoreactive memory T cells. Although the contribution of T cells to several forms of organ-mediated damage in SLE has been previously demonstrated, the role of T cells in neuropsychiatric SLE (NPSLE), which involves diffuse central nervous system manifestations and is observed in 20-40% of SLE patients, is not known. Therefore, we conducted this study to evaluate how behavioral deficits are altered after depletion or transfer of T cells, to directly assess the role of T cells in NPSLE.

Questions about the different aspects of physical activity (PA) are commonly asked in the clinical setting, yet their compatibility for use with children, particularly children with obesity (OB) is uncertain. Our aim was to investigate different PA-related questions when compared to an objective maximal cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPET) or validated questionnaires.

Recent studies suggest the enhancement of liver injury in COVID-19 patients infected with Hepatitis C virus (HCV). Hepatocytes express low levels of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), the SARS-CoV-2 entry receptor, raising the possibility of HCV-SARS-CoV-2 coinfection in the liver. This work aimed to explore whether HCV and SARS-CoV-2 coinfect hepatocytes and the interplay between these viruses. 

(Tom Domovitz, Samer Ayoub, Michal Werbner, Joel Alter, Lee Izhaki Tavor, Evgeny Tikhonov, Tomer Meirson, Yaakov Maman, Moshe Dessau, Meital Gal-Tanamy)

Autoimmune   bullous   diseases  (AIBDs)  are  typified   by   a  life-threatening   potential   and   long-term sequela( 1,2).  The  current  knowledge   about  the  prognosis   of  AIBDs  is  principally   confined  to  the  most  prevalent diseases; pemphigus  vulgaris  (P V)(3–5) and  bullous  pemphigoid  (BP )( 4,6,7). Population-based estimates  of  mortality   in  other  less  frequent  AIBDs  remain  to  be  delineated.  Investigating   the  survival  of  patients  with  rare  diseases  is  of  great  importance  to  better  elucidate  its  burden  and  to  tailor  a  convenient  health  policy  enabling  to  improve  its  management. The  aim  of  the  current  study  is  to  assess  the  risk  of  mortality  among  patients  with  eight  different  AIBDs, namely  BP,  mucous  membrane  pemphigoid  (MMP),  epidermolysis  bullosa  acquisita  (EBA), dermatitis  herpetiformis  (DH),  lichen  planus  pemphigoides  (LP P ),  P V,  pemphigus  foliaceus  (P F),  and  paraneoplastic pemphigus  (P NP ).

According to guidelines, the diagnosis of pneumonia should be confirmed by chest x-ray, ensuring appropriate management and wise use of antibiotics. Our study aimed to describe use of x-rays by family doctors and patients following diagnosis of pneumonia in primary care practices in the north of Israel.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is taking a staggering toll on healthcare systems worldwide, with the bulk of the expenditures invested in the late stages of the disease. Considering the rising life expectancy and the increasing prevalence of PD across the globe, a clear understanding of the early signs and treatment options available for advanced PD (APD), will facilitate tailoring management programs and support services. This task is complicated by the lack of both global consensus in defining APD and standardized care guidelines. This perspective prepared by a panel of movement disorder specialists, proposes to extend and optimize currently accepted PD coding to better reflect the diverse disease manifestations, with emphasis on non-motor features. 

Patients with absent contractility (AC) often suffer from either reflux or dysphagia. It remains unclear what factors determine which phenotype patients present with. We sought to evaluate if high-resolution manometry metrics, especially integrated relaxation pressure (IRP), could explain this.

Codon usage of each genome is closely correlated with the abundance of tRNA isoacceptors. How codon usage bias is resolved by tRNA post-transcriptional modifications is largely unknown. Here we demonstrate that the N¹-methylation of guanosine at position 37 (m¹G37) on the 3'-side of the anticodon, while not directly responsible for reading of codons, is a neutralizer that resolves differential decoding of proline codons. 

Lactobacillaceae are Gram-positive rods, facultative anaerobes, and belong to the lactic acid bacteria (LAB) that frequently serve as probiotics. We systematically compared five LAB strains for the effects of different carbohydrates on their free-living and biofilm lifestyles.

Following a previous study in which we evaluated the carriage rates of extended spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL) -producing Enterobacterales (ESBL⁺ E), carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales (CRE), vancomycin-resistant Enterococci (VRE), and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) among pregnant women and their neonates, in the current study we used, for the first time, Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FT-IR) in order to determine whether antibiotic-resistant bacteria colonization in neonates has resulted from a vertical transmission from the mothers.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019, several countries have reported a substantial drop in the number of patients admitted with non-ST segment myocardial infarction (NSTEMI). We aimed to evaluate the changes in admissions, in-hospital management and outcomes of patients with NSTEMI in the COVID-19 era in a nationwide survey.

Adnexal torsion remains a diagnostic challenge due to the nonspecific symptoms, sonographic features, and laboratory findings. The value of combining clinical, sonographic, and laboratory features is not well established, and controversy continues regarding their value in diagnosis. This study aimed to review sonographic, clinical, and laboratory features and to analyze their value separately and in combination, in managing and diagnosing adnexal torsions.

(Ala Aiob, Lior Lowenstein, Inna Borik, Karina Naskovica, Susana Mustafa Mikhail, Marwan Odeh)

Breast cancer is the second leading cause of morbidity and mortality in women worldwide. Despite advancements in the clinical application of neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC), drug resistance remains a major concern hindering treatment efficacy. Thus, identifying the key genes involved in driving NAC resistance and targeting them with known potential FDA-approved drugs could be applied to advance the precision medicine strategy. With this aim, we performed an integrative bioinformatics study to identify the key genes associated with NAC resistance in breast cancer and then performed the drug repurposing to identify the potential drugs which could use in combination with NAC to overcome drug resistance.