Articles

Mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS) is a heterogeneous disorder with diverse clinical manifestations, making diagnosis and management challenging. Pediatric MCAS remains poorly characterized, and the applicability of current diagnostic criteria in children is uncertain. Our objective is to evaluate the clinical history, laboratory findings, intestinal biopsy results, and treatment patterns of pediatric patients with a clinical diagnosis of MCAS, and to identify features that may improve diagnosis and management.

Polymer hybrid composites containing multiple fillers have attracted considerable attention because combinations of different materials can provide properties that are difficult to achieve with a single filler [1]. Nevertheless, the performance of these composites strongly depends on filler dispersion and interfacial interactions within the polymer matrix [2–4].

Decades of research have established, with remarkable clarity, that stability and care provided during a child’s earliest years have lasting impact on their health, development, and well-being. Across the lifespan, the consequences of a baby’s early relational trauma or responsive care, shape the architecture of their developing brain. When there is trauma or neglect, toxic stress in infancy alters the stress-response system in ways that, without amelioration, can persist for decades.

The following commentary expands on previous work on treating individuals diagnosed with behavioral addictions (BA) and co-occurring disorders (COD), suggesting a comprehensive-collaborative care model to enhance individual treatment protocols. It examines definitions and the challenges of aligning them with substance use disorders (SUD) in classification systems, noting dissonance among scholars and lack of research hindering acceptance by the American Psychiatric Association and World Health Organization.

Idiopathic hypereosinophilic syndrome encompasses a less common haematologic entity which is diagnosed after exclusion of clonal, reactive, familial, and secondary causes of eosinophilia. Its diverse clinical presentation involving any organ or system is well known and may be life threatening if untreated. 

Penile cancer is a rare and biologically heterogeneous malignancy in which extensive regional nodal or distant metastatic disease is associated with poor survival. This structured narrative review summarizes current evidence for systemic treatment in the neoadjuvant, adjuvant, first-line palliative, and later-line settings, together with emerging biomarkers and molecularly directed strategies. PubMed/MEDLINE, Embase, Scopus, Web of Science, and ClinicalTrials.gov were searched through 2010 to June 2026. 

Purpose: To determine the relative importance of treatment-related attributes on patient preferences for chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) as second-line (2L) multiple myeloma (MM) therapy.

Methods: US patients with relapsed or refractory MM who completed ≥1 line of treatment were recruited via convenience sampling to complete a cross-sectional survey between December 2023 and March 2024.

Biological evidence recovered from crime scenes is often subject to environmental conditions or suffers significant degradation, which can limit the accuracy of routine forensic genetic analyses. With their high stability and tissue-specific expression profiles, microRNAs (miRNAs) are emerging as promising forensic biomarkers for overcoming these limitations. 

Introduction: The primary line of management for symptomatic accessory pathway is catheter ablation. For effective mapping and ablation, accurate localization of the Accessary Pathway (AP) is critical but usually challenging, especially for the posteroseptal region.

Cancer immunotherapy has gained significant interest and widespread clinical application over the past few decades. The development of immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) antibodies that block inhibitory pathways (e.g., CTLA-4, PD-1/PD-L1) has introduced a groundbreaking new approach to cancer treatment, shifting the focus from targeting tumor cells to modulating the patient's immune response. 

Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) remains a primary curative treatment for numerous hematologic disorders. Historically, the success of HSCT relied on HLA matching to mitigate Graft-versus-Host Disease (GVHD); however, since fewer than 30% of patients have a matched family member, the field has undergone a significant paradigm shift.

Background: Acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in adults younger than 45 years is rising globally, and in South Asian populations it is a leading cause of disability-adjusted life-years lost. The pathophysiology is often distinct. Dyslipidemia, and in particular an elevated lipoprotein(a), together with hyperhomocysteinemia, thrombophilia and pro-thrombotic lifestyle factors, makes a greater contribution in older patients. Angiography frequently demonstrates a high thrombus burden in an otherwise minimally diseased coronary tree. In such patients, primary Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI) alone may be complicated by distal embolization, no-reflow and stent thrombosis.

Cognitive impairment is now widely recognized as a core; persistent feature of bipolar disorder (BD) that persists even after mood symptoms subside and is strongly associated with lasting disability and decreased quality of life. Growing evidence implicates interacting neurobiological mechanisms, including neuroinflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction, blood–brain barrier (BBB) disruption, and gut–brain axis alterations.

Early mobilization following hip hemiarthroplasty for neck of femur (NOF) fractures is critical to reducing morbidity and mortality in elderly patients. Objective tools to predict short-term walking recovery are lacking. To develop and internally validate a clinical prediction model for 90-day postoperative walking recovery in elderly patients following hip hemiarthroplasty for neck of femur fracture in Nigeria.

The emergence of transcatheter valve-in-valve (ViV) procedures has fundamentally changed the management of bioprosthetic valve degeneration, providing a less invasive alternative to high-risk surgical reoperation. However, the long-term clinical success of future transcatheter interventions is largely predetermined at the time of the initial surgical valve replacement.

Transgender women (TW) experience high rates of anal cancer, yet linkage to high-resolution anoscopy (HRA) following abnormal anal cancer screening (AACS) remains low. This study identifies stakeholder-informed interventions to improve linkage to HRA among TW. We interviewed eight stakeholders: 4 healthcare professionals involved in ACS in the Mid-Atlantic US and 4 TW community leaders in Washington DC.

Obesity, Type 2 Diabetes (T2D), and osteoporosis have long been treated as separate epidemics, each with its own guidelines, specialist clinics, and literature. That separation is no longer tenable. As global obesity and diabetes prevalence have risen, osteoporosis prevalence has risen in close parallel, and a rapidly expanding literature has exposed a mechanistic entanglement between adipose tissue, glucose metabolism, and bone. Bone is not a passive bystander in metabolic disease: it is an active endocrine organ, shaped by adiposity and glycemic control while itself modulating both.

Alcohol use and maladaptive coping behaviors, including excessive consumption of ultra-processed foods, are increasingly recognized as important contributors to both psychiatric illness and chronic liver disease. Many patients self-treat anxiety, insomnia, trauma, chronic pain, or mood disorders with alcohol without recognizing hazardous drinking patterns. In the setting of the global rise in Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatotic Liver Disease (MASLD), even modest alcohol intake may accelerate progression to Alcohol-Associated Liver Disease (ALD), advanced fibrosis, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma.

Intervertebral Differential Dynamics (IDD) Therapy is used as a targeted, non-surgical decompression intervention for selected patients with disc-related spinal pain. A previously published cohort reported significant short-term improvements in pain and disability, while paired magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) outcomes were reserved for subsequent analysis.

Angelman syndrome (AS) is a severe neurodevelopmental disorder caused by the loss of maternal UBE3A, an E3 ubiquitin ligase essential for neuronal development, synaptic plasticity, and cognitive function. AS has traditionally been viewed as a cell-autonomous disorder in which intracellular UBE3A deficiency drives neuronal dysfunction. However, recent evidence suggests that impaired extracellular vesicle (EV)-mediated intercellular communication also contributes to disease pathophysiology.