Int J Med Sci
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Meta Analysis
Risk factors for the exacerbation of patients with 2019 Novel Coronavirus: A meta-analysis.
Many studies have reported the risk factors for exacerbations in patients with 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV). This study aims to perform the meta-analysis of risk factors for the exacerbation of the novel coronavirus-infected pneumonia (NCIP). PubMed, Embase and Google scholar have been searched. ⋯ After comparing the patients between intensive care (ICU) group and non-ICU group, several important factors were found to significantly increase the risk of exacerbations in patients with NCIP, and they included hypertension (RR=2.34; 95% CI=1.21 to 4.51; P=0.01), cardiovascular diseases (RR=2.28; 95% CI=1.13 to 4.58; P=0.02), COPD (RR=7.65; 95% CI=1.24 to 47.13; P=0.03), dyspnea (RR=2.89; 95% CI=2.05 to 4.08; P<0.00001), myalgia or fatigue (RR=1.24; 95% CI=1.01 to 1.52; P=0.04), but several factors such as gender, Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market exposure, diabetes, chronic liver disease, malignancy, fever, cough, expectoration, headache and diarrhoea appeared to have no obvious effect on the exacerbation of pneumonia. In addition, as the exacerbation of pneumonia, some complications had the high probability to occur according to the meta-analysis of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) (RR=13.95; 95% CI=6.20 to 31.41; P<0.00001), shock (RR=24.29; 95% CI=4.66 to 126.69; P=0.0002), acute cardiac injury (RR=10.32; 95% CI=3.05 to 34.96; P=0.0002) and acute kidney injury (RR=5.90; 95% CI=1.32 to 26.35; P=0.02) between two groups. Several risk factors were confirmed to significantly improve the risk of exacerbation in patients with NCIP, which was very important for the exacerbation prediction and treatment of these patients.
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Meta Analysis
Serum levels of Homocysteine, Vitamin B12 and Folate in Patients with Multiple Sclerosis: an Updated Meta-Analysis.
Background: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a demyelinating and disabling inflammatory disease of the central nervous system. MS is triggered by complex environmental factors which mostly affect genetically the susceptible young people. Emerging data has suggested that changes of homocysteine (Hcy), Vitamin B12 and folate serum levels may be associated with MS. ⋯ And the difference was especially significant between RRMS patients and controls. Hcy may play an important role in the pathogenesis of MS. Functional studies are required to assess the effects of Hcy on patients with MS at the molecular level.
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Preclinical studies have demonstrated that metformin has anticancer properties and act in additive or synergistic way when combined with anticancer agents. We conducted this meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials to evaluate the effect of metformin added to systemic anticancer therapy in patients with advanced or metastatic cancer. A computerized systematic electronic search was performed using PubMed, PMC, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science databases (up to June 2020). ⋯ The concomitant use of metformin with systemic anticancer therapy did not increase tumor response (the pooled OR of ORR = 1.23, 95% CI: 0.89-1.71, p = 0.21), compared with anticancer therapy alone. In terms of survival, metformin added to anticancer agents failed to prolong PFS (HR = 0.95, 95% CI: 0.75-1.21, p = 0.68) and OS (HR = 0.97, 95% CI: 0.80-1.16, p = 0.71). In conclusion, this meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials indicates that the addition of metformin to systemic anticancer therapy has no clinical benefits in patients with advanced or metastatic cancer.