חדשות המחקר

Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PSA) is an infectious pathogen associated with acute appendicitis; however, it is not consistently addressed by empirical antibiotic therapy, despite potential complications. Objectives: To investigate the incidence, predictors, and outcomes of PSA-associated acute appendicitis in children.

Upper gastrointestinal (UGI) symptoms are very common in the general adult population. Dysphagia, heartburn, regurgitation and non-cardiac chest pain are the most common signs. The clinical approach in managing these symptoms starts with upper GI endoscopy in order to exclude inflammatory, neoplastic and fibrotic disorders that involve the esophagus. Upper GI endoscopy is mandatory especially when alarm signs exist. In patients with no structural abnormalities, physiological testing might aid to better understand the origin of the symptoms and to improve management.

Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) antagonists represent a major breakthrough in the treatment of rheumatologic diseases. However, a variety of potentially serious adverse events have been reported related to their use, including (but not limited to) neurological manifestations. Mononeuritis multiplex is considered a severe neurological sequela that should be treated promptly to ensure the best clinical outcomes. Herein, we report a case of a patient with ankylosing spondylitis who developed mononeuritis multiplex 2 weeks after her first infusion of infliximab, along with a pronounced vasculitic skin rash and highly positive anti-nuclear and anti-double-stranded DNA antibodies.

Catheter-balloon insertion is a cervical ripening method of labor induction. Papaverine and its derivatives are musculotropic antispasmodic drugs that directly induce smooth muscle relaxation. Used during childbirth, these drugs have been suggested to shorten the duration of labor. We aimed to evaluate the effect of administering papaverine prior to catheter-balloon insertion on changes in Bishop-scores and on the induction-to-delivery interval.

(Raneen Abu Shqara, Yara Nakhleh Francis, Gabriela Goldinfeld, Yousef Haddad, Inshirah Sgayer, Miri Lavinsky, Lior Lowenstein, Maya Frank Wolf)

The protease activated receptor 2 (Par2) plays a pivotal role in various damage models, influencing injury, proliferation, inflammation, and regeneration. Despite extensive studies, its binary roles- EITHER aggravating injury or promoting recovery-make a conclusive translational decision on its modulation strategy elusive. Analyzing two liver regeneration models, autoimmune hepatitis and direct hepatic damage, we discovered Par2's outcome depends on the injury's nature. 

Molar pregnancies, encompassing complete and partial moles, represent a rare and enigmatic gestational disorder with potential ethnic variations in incidence. This study aimed to investigate relations of ethnicity with risks of complete and partial molar pregnancies within an Israeli population while accounting for age differences.

(Ala Aiob, Dina Gumin, Inna Zilberfarb, Karina Naskovica, Inshirah Sgayer, Susana Mustafa Mikhail, Avishalom Sharon, Lior Lowenstein)

Children and their parents often provide divergent reports regarding their mental health on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). These discrepancies may impede the diagnostic processes. The present study aimed to explore how a child's attachment to the parent and parental feelings may explain some of the variability between parent's and children's reports on the SDQ.

Juvenile polyposis syndrome (JPS) is a rare autosomal dominant disorder characterized by multiple juvenile polyps in the gastrointestinal tract, often associated with mutations in genes such as Smad4 and BMPR1A. This study explores the impact of Smad4 knock-out on the development of intestinal polyps using collaborative cross (CC) mice, a genetically diverse model.

According to current guidelines, systemic or topical corticosteroids are recommended as first-line treatments for bullous pemphigoid (BP). There is evidence suggesting that topical application may be associated with a lower risk of mortality. However, there is a lack of comprehensive large-scale data comparing mortality rates, as well as the risk of major adverse cardiac events (MACE), infections, and relapse, between systemic and topical corticosteroid treatments.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the necessity of fast, sensitive, and efficient methods to test large populations for respiratory viruses. The "gold standard" molecular assays for detecting respiratory viruses, such as quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) and reverse transcription qPCR (RT-qPCR), rely on invasive swab samples and require time-consuming and labor-intensive extraction processes. Moreover, the turnaround time for RT-qPCR-based assays is too lengthy for rapid screening. Extraction-free saliva-based methods provide a non-invasive sampling process with a fast turnaround time and are suitable for high-throughput applications. However, when used with a standard RT-qPCR system, the absence of extraction significantly reduces the assays' sensitivity. Here, using a novel optical modulation biosensing (OMB) platform, we developed a rapid and highly sensitive extraction-free saliva-based molecular assay.

Pyoderma gangrenosum (PG) is a rare chronic ulcerating skin disorder with an immunological pathomemchanistic basis. As with other neutrophilic dermatoses, PG usually has an associated disorder, mainly Inflammatory bowel disease, arthritis and haematological malignancies. Immune-mediated rheumatic diseases (IMRD) are defined as a group of acquired diseases resulting from persistent immune-mediated inflammation. These autoantibodies or autoreactive T cells can attack any organ of the body, leading to a wide array of signs and symptoms. This disease group consists of several potentially devastating conditions such as systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), systemic sclerosis (SSc), rheumatoid arthritis (RA), psoriatic arthritis (PsA), Sjögren syndrome and dermatomyositis.

Several case reports have pointed to the coexistence of PG and IMRD in individual patients. While the association of PG with RA is robust, our knowledge about the potential of SLE, SSc and PsA to trigger PG is very sparse. The current study sought to investigate the bidirectional association between PG and IMRD.

Late follicular premature progesterone rise is a complex phenomenon encountered during assisted reproductive technology (ART) treatments; different etiologies can occur in the same patient. Low ovarian responders may be the best example, since higher FSH doses and ovarian aging-related changes may interact and generate a premature progesterone rise. This study aims to explore the correlation between progesterone levels on hCG day and the progesterone-to-follicle index and compare the progesterone-to-follicle index according to ovarian response.

Patients with FLT3-mutated acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) that relapse or are refractory (R/R) to intensive induction have poor outcomes. Gilteritinib has recently become standard-of-care for patients with R/R FLT3-mutated AML. We investigated whether adding venetoclax to gilteritinib (gilt-ven) improves outcomes as compared with gilteritinib monotherapy. 

Flow-cytometry (FC) is a powerful tool that can assist in lymphoma diagnosis in lymph node (LN) specimens. Although lymphoma diagnosis and classification are mainly based on tumor cell characteristics, surrounding cells are less employed in this process. We retrospectively investigated alterations in the ploidy status, proliferative cell fraction (PF) and the percentages of surrounding immune cells in 62 consecutive LN specimens with B-Cell Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (B-NHL) that were submitted for FC evaluation between 2019-2022. 

(David Azoulay, Tal Tapuchi, Ohad Ronen, Luiza Akria , Hector I Cohen, Celia Surio, Svetlana Rodin Chepa, Elizabeth Eshel, Moran Zarfati, Galia Stemer)

Our knowledge about the association between vitiligo and Parkinson's disease (PD) is sparse. We sought to investigate the bidirectional epidemiological association between vitiligo and PD.