The effect of climate changes on incidence of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo; a systematic review with meta-analysis of 16144 patients.

BACKGROUND: There were controversial findings in terms of the association between the incidence of Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV) and climate changes, so the current systematic review plus meta-analysis is designed to discover this possible relationship. METHODS: Web of science, PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar, Embase, and Cochrane library were systematically searched up to August 2023. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) and Problem/Population, Intervention, Comparison, and Outcome (PICO) guidelines were used. Two authors independently reviewed the eligible articles and assessed the quality of them. RESULTS: In total, 15 studies including 16144 patients met the inclusion criteria. Ten studies reported the relation of BPPV to monthly mean temperature, 7 to monthly average humidity, 4 to monthly average rainfall, 6 to monthly sunlight time, and 2 to average solar radiation. The incidence of BPPV was associated significantly with atmospheric pressure (P: 0.003) and rainfall (P: 0.017). However, there was not any statistically significant correlation between incidence of BPPV and humidity, sunlight time, temperature, and solar radiation level (P > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The incidence of BPPV was higher in cold months of a year in both northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere countries. Although it can be because of negative correlation with temperature, the current meta-analysis did not find any statistically significant negative correlation with temperature. In addition, the incidence of BPPV was associated significantly with atmospheric pressure (positive correlation) and rainfall (negative correlation).

Exploring the Association of Serum Uric Acid Levels with Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Objectives: The role of uric acid in pathogenesis of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) is not fully understood. It is aimed to assess the serum uric acid levels in BPPV patients compared to healthy controls. Study design: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Methods: Web of science, PubMed, Scopus, Google Scholar, Embase, Medline, and Cochrane library were systematically searched. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) and Problem/Population, Intervention, Comparison, and Outcome (PICO) guidelines were used. Results: In total, 20 studies including 3967 participants met the inclusion criteria. Ten studies (50%) reported higher uric acid (UA) levels in BPPV patients, 4 studies (20%) indicated lower UA levels in BPPV patients, while 6 studies (30%) found no significant difference in UA levels between BPPV patients and healthy controls. The overall mean serum levels of UA (SMD: 0.265, [-0.163 to 0.693]) were higher in BPPV patients than control group. However, this difference was not statistically significant (P-value: .225). Conclusion: There is no significant difference in serum level of UA between BPPV patients and healthy controls. It means that serum level of UA (whether low or high) is not likely the underlying factor of development of BPPV.

Role of Early Postoperative Measurement of Copeptin in Prediction of Diabetes Insipidus Following Pituitary Surgery in Adults: a systematic review plus meta-analysis.

PURPOSE: Early diagnosis of Diabetes insipidus (DI), a complication following pituitary surgery, can avoid the catastrophic results such as lethargy or even death. Measurement of Arginine vasopressin (AVP) may help the early diagnosis, but its direct assaying is challenging. Copeptin, which is co-secreted in equimolar quantities to AVP, is suggested to be a reliable marker in prediction of post-op DI. Therefore, this systematic review plus meta-analysis aims to discover this possible role. METHODS: Google Scholar, PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Embase, and Cochrane library were systematically searched up to August 2024. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) and Problem/Population, Intervention, Comparison, and Outcome (PICO) guidelines were used. Two authors independently reviewed the eligible articles and assessed the quality of them. A meta-analysis was conducted to assess the discriminative performance of copeptin. RESULTS: In total, 8 cohort studies including 1255 participants met the inclusion criteria. The median copeptin levels were significantly lower in DI groups compared to non-DI groups in all included studies (P < 0.005). Meta-analysis of AUCs demonstrated that early measurement of copeptin level had an accuracy of 0.791 (SE: 0.0198, 95% CI: 0.752 to 0.830), which was statistically significant (P < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Copeptin level was significantly lower in DI patients than in non-DI patients who underwent pituitary surgery. Early measurement, as soon as possible (from the first hour to 48 hours after the operation), of copeptin after pituitary surgeries has good, but not excellent, accuracy to exclude post-op DI.

Systemic Inflammatory Index Is a Novel Predictor of Intubation Requirement and Mortality after SARS-CoV-2 Infection.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), with an increasing number of deaths worldwide, has created a tragic global health and economic emergency. The disease, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2019 (SARS-CoV-19), is a multi-system inflammatory disease with many of COVID-19-positive patients requiring intensive medical care due to multi-organ failures. Biomarkers to reliably predict the patient's clinical cause of the virus infection, ideally, to be applied in point of care testing or through routine diagnostic approaches, are highly needed. We aimed to probe if routinely assessed clinical lab values can predict the severity of the COVID-19 course. Therefore, we have retrospectively analyzed on admission laboratory findings in 224 consecutive patients from four hospitals and show that systemic immune inflammation index (SII) is a potent marker for predicting the requirement for invasive ventilator support and for worse clinical outcome of the infected patient. Patients' survival and severity of SARS-CoV-2 infection could reliably be predicted at admission by calculating the systemic inflammatory index of individual blood values. We advocate this approach to be a feasible and easy-to-implement assay that may be particularly useful to improve patient management during high influx crisis. We believe with this work to contribute to improving infrastructure availability and case management associated with COVID-19 pandemic hurdles.