No abstract

Objective While there are literature reporting increased incidence of hair loss in COVID‐19 patients, insufficient evidence exists on the topic to date. This review aims to identify the existing evidence and clinical characteristics of hair loss with COVID‐19 infection. Methods Following the PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews, MEDLINE and EMBASE were searched for all peer‐reviewed articles with relevant keywords including “Alopecia,” “Telogen Effluvium (TE),” and “COVID‐19” from their inception to November 20, 2021. Results A total of 26 articles, with 9 observational studies and 17 case reports or series (a total of 58 cases), were included. Most studies dealt with TE. There were no clear trends between COVID‐19 severity and the extent of hair loss. Analysis of the 58 cases also found similar results with most of the cases being female (82.8%), the median onset of hair loss of 2.0 months, and the median time to recovery of hair loss of 5.0 months with a resolution rate of 95%. Conclusion While this systematic review revealed uncertainty and a lack of strong evidence regarding the association of COVID‐19 and hair loss, hair loss in COVID‐19 may mainly include TE and be reversible in nature. Future studies are warranted to determine the detailed pathophysiology and risk factors of hair loss in COVID‐19, including possible roles of estrogen, progesterone, and pro‐inflammatory cytokines.

Background More than 6 million people are affected by inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) globally. The World IBD Day (WID, May 19) and Crohn’s and Colitis Awareness Week (CCAW, December 1-7) occur yearly as national health observances to raise public awareness of IBD, but their effects are unclear. Objective The aim of this study was to analyze the relationship between WID or CCAW and the public health awareness on IBD represented by the Google search engine query data. Methods This study evaluates the impact of WID and CCAW on the public awareness of IBD in the United States and worldwide from 2016 to 2020 by using the relative search volume of “IBD,” “ulcerative colitis,” and “Crohn’s disease” in Google Trends. To identify significant time points of trend changes (joinpoints), we performed joinpoint regression analysis. Results No joinpoints were noted around the time of WID or CCAW during the study period in the search results of the United States. Worldwide, joinpoints were noted around WID in 2020 with the search for “IBD” and around CCAW in 2017 and 2019 with the search for “ulcerative colitis.” However, the extents of trend changes were modest without statistically significant increases. Conclusions These results posed a question that WID and CCAW might not have worked as expected to raise public awareness of IBD. Additional studies are needed to precisely estimate the impact of health observances to raise the awareness of IBD.

No abstract

Background Although there is literature reporting correlations between varicella zoster virus (VZV) infections and COVID-19, insufficient evidence exists in this regard. This scoping review aims to identify the existing evidence regarding clinical characteristics of primary VZV infection or reactivation in COVID-19. Methods Following the PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews, MEDLINE and EMBASE were searched for all peer-reviewed articles with relevant keywords including "Zoster," "Herpes," and "COVID-19" from their inception to November 20, 2021.Results A total of 19 articles with three observational studies and 16 case reports or series were included. Primary VZV infections or reactivation were observed in 25 patients.Forty-eight percent of the patients had disseminated VZV infection. The median time of VZV-related rash after the onset of respiratory symptoms was 7.0 days (interquartile range: 0-18.8). Those with COVID-19 and primary VZV infection or reactivation had low lymphocyte counts with a median of 0.67 9 10 3 /ll. ConclusionThis scoping review identified uncertainty and a lack of strong evidence to see the association between primary VZV infection or reactivation and COVID-19. However, those with COVID-19 may be more likely to have disseminated VZV, which poses an additional challenge from an infection prevention standpoint. Future studies are warranted to determine the association between primary VZV infection or reactivation and long-term consequences related to COVID-19.the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) extension for scoping reviews (PRISMA-ScR). 10,11 Appendix S1 is the PRISMA-ScR checklist of the present study.Search strategy MEDLINE and EMBASE searches were conducted for all peer-reviewed articles from inception to November 20, 2021.

Idiopathic multicentric Castleman disease (iMCD) is a rare, clinicopathologically heterogeneous disorder with systemic inflammation and/or multi-organ dysfunction related to a high pro-inflammatory cytokine status. 1 Since Fajgenbaum et al. proposed the international consensus diagnostic criteria for iMCD, there has been less confusion regarding diagnostic and treatment approaches for the disorder. 2 However, iMCD has considerable heterogeneity. 3 Pathologically, iMCD is divided into plasma cell (PC) type, hypervascular (HV) type, and a mixed variant, although the histological definition of the mixed variant is unclear. The pathology of PC-type iMCD (PC-iMCD) is characterized by atrophic to hyperplastic germinal centers, interfollicular plasmacytosis, and mild to severe vascularity. Clinically, patients with iMCD are further classified into iMCD not otherwise specified (iMCD-NOS) or thrombocytopenia, anasarca, fever, reticulin fibrosis, renal insufficiency, and organomegaly clinical subtype (iMCD-TAFRO). TAFRO syndrome is a heterogeneous entity with a constellation of the aforementioned symptoms, including infectious diseases,

No abstract

Background: Serum Procalcitonin (PCT) has been reported as a potential biomarker to predict the severity of acute cholangitis (AC) or the need for urgent biliary decompression. This study aimed to identify and summarize the existing research about the serum PCT and the severity of AC, and to find gaps where future studies can be targeted towards. Methods: Following the PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews, MEDLINE, EMBASE, and Google Scholar were searched for all peer-reviewed articles with relevant keywords including "cholangitis" and "procalcitonin" from their inception to July 13, 2021. Results: We identified six studies. All the studies employed case-control design and aimed to evaluate the usefulness of serum PCT to predict the severity of AC with key identified outcomes. While potential cut-off values of serum PCT for severe AC ranged from 1.8–3.1 ng/mL, studies used different severity criteria and the definition of urgent biliary decompression. No studies proposed cut-off PCT values for the need for urgent biliary decompression. Conclusion: This scoping review identified that the current level of evidence regarding the usefulness of serum PCT in assessing the severity of AC. Further clinical research is warranted with a focus on standardized outcome measures employing prospective or experimental designs.