The objective of this article is to review the existing literature on postoperative recurrence of adhesive small bowel obstruction (ASBO). We performed a systematic review following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, searching PubMed, Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar, to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and observational studies investigating recurrence after operative management of ASBO. Our search yielded one RCT, one prospective study, and eight retrospective studies, totaling 36,178 patients. We used Cochrane risk-of-bias tool and the Newcastle-Ottawa scale to assess the risk of bias in the reviewed studies (RCTs and observational studies, respectively). Operative management was associated with a lower risk of recurrence than conservative management, while the difference in recurrence between laparoscopic and open surgery was inconclusive. Diffuse adhesions were associated with a greater risk of recurrence than single band adhesions. We conclude that the "common knowledge" that surgery increases the risk for recurrence of ASBO is outdated and should no longer be applied when determining treatment modalities for ASBO. While conservative treatment still has its place, we need not fear the possibility of shifting patients to operative management earlier.

Coughing is one of the most prevalent symptoms in children presenting at outpatient departments. This systematic review aimed to review previous literature in order to compare the use of honey and antitussive medications for treating coughs in children. Literature was screened across five databases using Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) strategy, keywords, and inclusion and exclusion criteria. The remaining literature was evaluated using a quality appraisal tool checklist. This review includes systematic reviews, metaanalyses, randomized controlled trials (RCTs), observational studies, cross-sectional studies, and articles without a defined methodology section. This review suggests that honey is effective in treating children above 12 months of age, while cold and cough medications (CCMs) are safe if administered at therapeutic doses. Since fatalities can occur in children under two years of age, further RCT studies on CCMs are required to establish safety across all age groups.

This systematic review paper aimed to assess and analyze the prevalence of maternal colonization of Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) also known as methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA) and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) in the peripartum period and its significance on vertical transmission to the neonate and if it is a potential threat to the health of newborns. For this, multiple databases, such as PubMed, MEDLINE, ScienceDirect, and the database of Elsevier, were used to scout for relevant articles, and results were reported adhering to the principles set by Preferred Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines 2020. A specific medical subject headings (MeSH) criterion was designed to search for relevant publications on PubMed. A total of 26 articles were finally selected after a meticulous screening process, including detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria, manual reading of titles and abstracts, and availability of accessible full-text articles. A few articles were also selected after going through the citations section of the initially selected papers. Quality appraisal was done on the selected publications.Maternal colonization of S. aureus is determined to be highly prevalent with the hypothesis that nasal colonization had higher rates than recto-vaginal sites. Increasing maternal age, history of vaginitis, and multiparity were the most common risk factors for MRSA and MSSA colonization. Premature babies were at the highest risk of MRSA colonization. Breast milk is also a risk factor for neonatal MRSA transmission. Through this systematic review, we concluded that although the rate of vertical transmission of MRSA is lower than that of MSSA, we felt that it held significance as neonates with the bug have poor outcomes due to skin and soft tissue infections and there is spread of MRSA to other neonates in the wards and spread to siblings in cases of triplets and quadruplets and even death due to potential MRSA sepsis. Women in Africa and China had high prevalence rates of MRSA and S. aureus which can probably be attributed to a lack of access to adequate healthcare facilities. We recommend screening with regular recto-vaginal swabs and nasal swabs especially in regions with a high burden of MRSA to be performed at regular intervals after confirmation of pregnancy, as prevention and screening are effective to avoid serious complications.

In a generation where advancements in research and understanding have led to remarkable achievements in medicine, it is still unfathomable that, after more than a century, the cause of schizophrenia is still a mystery. While antipsychotics, without a doubt, have brought on an exemplary revolution in the way psychiatric disorders are now treated, there are still imperative deficits that need to be addressed to ultimately enable individuals with schizophrenia to function normally in society. However, without a definite cause of schizophrenia, even though speculation has been made on its inflammatory and neurodegenerative nature, it has provided an unnecessary hindrance to finding further potential treatment modalities for these patients. Nevertheless, some trials are investigating potential adjunctive treatment regimens to antipsychotics, which can help achieve complete remission. Exploring these drugs will have significant implications for managing schizophrenia in future clinical practices. This systematic review was conducted between January 2012 to July 2022 according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis guidelines to evaluate the safety and efficacy of ondansetron and simvastatin as adjunctive treatment to antipsychotics in adult patients with schizophrenia. This review included nine randomized controlled trials. Overall, both simvastatin and ondansetron, when used as adjunctive treatment in schizophrenia, appear to be safe. Ondansetron showed promising results, with all studies on this drug showing positive overall results on schizophrenia symptoms. On the other hand, simvastatin demonstrated mixed results, which can be attributed to the limited participants in the studies and the shorter duration of the trials. However, more extensive trials with uniform assessment tools are needed to demonstrate concrete evidence of the effectiveness of these drugs, whether alone or in combination with each other or perhaps another drug such as aspirin in schizophrenia.

With the advancement in medicine leading to the discovery of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor drugs, numerous oncologists are now commonly using antiangiogenic medications to improve outcomes and attain disease control. Thus, the significance of prognostic and predictive indicators in patient selection has become increasingly imperative. These biomarkers have the capacity to be highly effective and can easily be implemented in various diagnostic and therapeutic settings on a large scale. Overall, it has the potential of significantly decreasing mortality in a fatal disease and possibly achieving partial or complete remission. Many clinical trials have shown the efficacy of bevacizumab in treating malignancies. However, there are currently no known predictive or prognostic biomarkers for bevacizumab in glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). Several clinical studies have evaluated bevacizumab-induced hypertension as a potential marker in patients with different malignancies, including recurrent glioblastoma multiforme (rGBM). This systematic review was performed to determine the association of bevacizumab-induced hypertension with outcomes in patients with advanced brain cancer and to assess whether hypertension (HTN) can be used as a prognostic factor. The review was conducted according to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines, and the databases were searched from January 2012 to June 2022. This review aimed to evaluate six published studies to investigate the relationship between hypertension and the outcomes of patients with rGBM treated with bevacizumab. Among the included publications, four out of six were retrospective and featured a positive result regarding hypertension being used as an independent predictive factor of survival outcomes in rGBM. However, two studies showed negative results. This can be attributed to the limited subsets of patients and the duration of the studies. In conclusion, bevacizumabinduced hypertension may represent a prognostic factor in patients with rGBM.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a neuropsychiatric disorder that affects approximately 2% of the human population. Traditional treatment of OCD includes selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) or serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SRI) treatment along with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Nearly 25%-30% of OCD patients do not respond to SSRIs. Glutamatergic agents are currently being studied for the treatment of OCD due to the glutamatergic pathway in the brain, related to OCD, and the role of the cortico-striatothalamic circuit (CSTC). This review assesses the clinical effectiveness of N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) antagonists, ketamine/esketamine, memantine, and amantadine, for adult patients with OCD. Inclusion criteria include human studies published within the last 15 years, with patients diagnosed with OCD, aged over 18 years, with only psychiatric comorbidities, and full-text articles. Papers that included interventions other than CBT, exposure with response prevention (ERP), and SSRI/SRI were excluded. Articles were searched for using PubMed, PubMed Central, Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online, GeorgiA LIbrary LEarning Online, EBSCO Information Services, OpenAthens, Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, and Google Scholar databases, last searched on December 2, 2022. The risk of bias was assessed using Cochrane Risk of Bias tools, the Scale for the Assessment of Narrative Review Articles (SANRA) checklist for literature reviews, and the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) Critical Appraisal Checklist for quasi-experimental studies. Results were presented and synthesized by Excel spreadsheet analysis. The database search yielded 4,221 articles, which was cut down to 18 articles by inclusion/exclusion criteria, including duplications. 80% of the ketamine studies resulted in a significant reduction of obsessions and compulsions based on the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS), and each of the memantine and amantadine studies displayed clinical effectiveness, also. Limitations include the small number of amantadine studies and the limited availability of other NMDA receptor (NMDAR) antagonist-focused studies. This systematic review shows that ketamine is an effective drug for the treatment of non-refractory, mild to moderate OCD, and memantine and amantadine are effective augmentation agents for the treatment of mild to severe OCD.

Many studies have shown that vitamin D is a crucial modulator of hypertension and cardiovascular illness, including heart failure. Heart failure (HF) is still the leading cause of mortality worldwide. Patients with heart failure who have low vitamin D levels experience worse outcomes, which associate with known clinical correlations and biomarkers. Additionally, patients with low vitamin D levels are more likely to have diabetes, hypertension, atherosclerosis, and other precursor conditions to heart failure. There are some hints in recent experimental research on how vitamin D can have cardioprotective effects. Vitamin D supplementation might improve ventricular remodeling in heart failure patients, however, this is still unclear. It aims to evaluate the association between vitamin D and congestive heart failure (CHF). This systematic review used research from the previous ten years (January 2012-2022) retrieved from the following databases: PubMed/PMC (PubMed Central)/Medline and Cochrane Library. Using the Preferred Reporting Item for Systematic Review and Meta-analysis (PRISMA) 2020 guidelines, removing duplicates, screening of title and abstract, application of eligibility criteria, and quality appraisal, 13 articles were retained for systemic review. There were 10 randomized controlled trials and three observational studies. Vitamin D supplementation lowers serum inflammatory marker levels and improves the quality of life in CHF patients. Vitamin D treatment inhibits ventricular remodeling and improves cardiac function in a patient with CHF.

Current non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treatment consists of various combinations of surgery, chemotherapy, and/or radiation, depending on the tumor stage. Individuals with stage II-IIIa NSCLC undergo surgery, followed by combination chemotherapy containing cisplatin, such as vinorelbine + cisplatin. Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), such as gefitinib, act by inhibiting any signaling pathway containing the EGFR mutation and inhibiting the growth of NSCLC. TKI is a treatment option in advanced NSCLC, resulting in more prolonged progression-free survival (PFS). This manuscript aims to evaluate the influence of utilizing gefitinib -either alone or in combination with conventional chemotherapeutic drug regimens upon NSCLC patient profile survival parameters. A systematic literature review was conducted across multiple scientific literature repositories. The review was performed using the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) 2020.There were six randomized clinical trials (RCT) and five retrospective studies. The overall consensus based on the end outcome of each published journal on the effectiveness of gefitinib as a treatment option for NSCLC indicated that there was a notable difference in overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) and disease-free survival (DFS) datasets. Gefitinib use correlated with increased timeframes for multiple patient survival parameters within articles shortlisted in this investigation. However, more comprehensive investigations are required to validate such correlations. Gefitinib did demonstrate the potential to provide beneficial effects and counteract NSCLC within such patients.