The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the circulation, seasonal distribution, and research of other respiratory pathogens in Turkey.

INTRODUCTION: Respiratory infections are one of the world's most common infectious diseases. Following the species, numbers, and seasonal distribution of acute respiratory agents is important for the protection of public health. Our study aimed to determine the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the circulation and seasonal distribution of non-SARS-CoV-2 respiratory tract agents and research on non-SARS-CoV-2 agents. METHODS: The results of the Multiplex PCR respiratory panel of 3702 nasopharyngeal swab samples sent between January 2018 and December 2021 were evaluated retrospectively. Scientific articles on acute respiratory infections between 2010 and 2021 from Turkey were analyzed in Scopus for bibliometric analysis. RESULTS: 1.382 pathogens were detected. During the pandemic, the number of non-SARS-CoV-2 pathogens was found to be statistically significantly lower than before the pandemic. It was determined that while the most frequent agent before the pandemic was the Adenovirus, the most frequent agent was the RSV-A during the pandemic. Our network analysis of keywords indicated that academic interest in 2020-21 was directed toward COVID-19, which coincides with the pandemic period. CONCLUSIONS: Our study determined the fact that the incidence, species, and seasonal distribution of non-SARS-COV-2 respiratory agents changed after the onset of the pandemic. Increasing the identification and following-up of these pathogens in health organizations and also presenting these data to literature and sharing with academics is important. We are of the opinion that the results of our study shall shed light on the epidemiology of changing respiratory infections and the prevention and following-up of future health problems.

Publication Trends on Infective Endocarditis: Comprehensive Bibliometric Analysis and Visualization Between 1892 and 2022.

BACKGROUND: In recent years, studies reported that the incidence of infective endocarditis (IE) has increased despite the decrease in rheumatic heart diseases, great advances in medical and surgical treatment methods, and prophylactic antibiotic therapies. However, there is no bibliometric analysis based on the visual mapping method in the literature. In the study, we aimed to analyze the hot topics in IE, the distribution of publications in terms of country, institution, journal, author, and their relationships by assessing IE articles published in the 130 years between 1892 and 2022. METHODS: Publications before 2023 were analyzed using the keywords 'infective' and 'endocarditis' in the Scopus database. RESULTS: Approximately 25% of the publications on IE were from the USA followed by Japan, France, and the UK. A total of 116 keywords were used at least 15 times and the keywords were categorized into 9 clusters by the VOSviewer program. The keywords used more than 100 times except 'infective endocarditis' were 'echocardiography,' 'mortality,' 'surgery,' 'Staphylococcus aureus,' 'cardiac surgery,' 'epidemiology,' and 'prognosis' 247, 191, 152, 142, 130, 122, and 119 times, respectively. To the best of our knowledge, the study is the most comprehensive study globally on IE with the widest time range including the visual mapping method. CONCLUSION: Since our study reveals the changes in the literature related to infective endocarditis, we think that it will be a guide in planning new research studies. We believe that periodic repetition of bibliometric analyses and keyword mapping studies will contribute to the quantitative and qualitative development of scientific productivity globally.

Türkiye's 3-Year Coronavirus Disease 2019 Publication Performance in the Shadow of the Pandemic: A Bibliometric Analysis.

The pandemic created by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has led researchers to study to deal with this infection. The number of studies about it being performed and published is increasing over time. Due to the dramatic growth of COVID-19 scientific publications, we conducted a bibliometric and visualized study to better understand the progress, collaborations, and trend topics of COVID-19 publications in Türkiye. Material and Methods: The scientific literature on COVID-19 research in Türkiye from 2020 to 2022 was extracted from the Scopus database and analyzed using bibliometric and scientometric techniques. A total of 426.662 COVID-19-related publications were published worldwide in the 3-year period and Türkiye ranked 12th according to both publication (8.394) and case numbers (17.004.677). The most cooperations of Türkiye were with the USA, the UK, and Italy. The 5 most used keywords were determined as "COVID-19," "SARS-CoV-2," "Pandemics," "Coronavirus," and "Anxiety" respectively. It was determined by the keyword analysis that the most focused topics were related to the "COVID-19 clinic." Türkiye did not lag behind in the number of studies on her geography, and it was seen to be in the leading position compared to the Middle East countries. It is important to periodically evaluate such a large number of research articles from a broad perspective for planning and direction of future studies.

Evaluation of serum placenta-specific gene 8 protein, total antioxidant capacity, interleukin-10, interleukin-17A, interleukin-21 and interleukin-33 levels in Turkish women with gestational diabetes mellitus.

PURPOSE: Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is defined as carbohydrate intolerance that begins or is diagnosed during pregnancy. Our study aimed to establish a correlation between proinflammatory and anti-inflammatory response in order to be able to develop treatment strategies and determine early diagnosis biomarkers in the sera of cases diagnosed with GDM. Moreover, we aimed to investigate interleukin (IL), placenta-specific gene 8 protein (PLAC8) and total antioxidant capacity (TAC) in patients with GDM. METHODS: A total of 121 patients were included in the study. These were divided into four patient groups: pregnant and diagnosed with DM (P-GDM, n=30); pregnant and not diagnosed with DM (P-NGDM, n=32); non-pregnant diagnosed with DM (NP-DM, n=29) and non-pregnant and not diagnosed with DM (NPNDM, n=30). IL-10, IL-17A, IL-21, IL-33, PLAC8 and TAC determinations from patients were evaluated by ELISA (Enzyme-Linked ImmunoSorbent Assay) method. RESULTS: IL-10 and IL-33 concentrations were found to be significantly higher in P-GDM and NP-DM patient groups compared to P-NGDM and NP-NDM groups (p<0.001). The PLAC8 level in the P-GDM patient group (20.38±5.37) was determined to be significantly higher than in the P-NGDM patient group (3.41±2.17, p<0.001). TAC in the P-NGDM and NP-NDM groups (12.42±2.31 vs. 12.96±3.78, p<0.001) was determined to be significantly higher than in the P-GDM and NP-DM groups (4.8±0.52 vs. 2.21±0.71, p<0.001). DISCUSSION: The fact that the importance of PLAC8 level and TAC in the diagnosis and follow-up of GDM in pregnancy is demonstrated for the first time in this study shows that it is unique.

In silico discovery of diagnostic/vaccine candidate antigenic epitopes and a multi-epitope peptide vaccine (NaeVac) design for the brain-eating amoeba Naegleria fowleri causing human meningitis.

Naegleria fowleri, the brain-eating amoeba, is a free-living amoeboflagellate with three different life cycles (trophozoite, flagellated, and cyst) that lives in a variety of habitats around the world including warm freshwater and soil. It causes a disease called naegleriasis leading meningitis and primary amoebic meningoencephalitis (PAM) in humans. N. fowleri is transmitted through contaminated water sources such as insufficiently chlorinated swimming pool water or contaminated tap water, and swimmers are at risk. N. fowleri is found all over the world, and most infections were reported in both developed and developing countries with high mortality rates and serious clinical findings. Until now, there is no FDA approved vaccine and early diagnosis is urgent against this pathogen. In this study, by analyzing the N. fowleri vaccine candidate proteins (Mp2CL5, Nfa1, Nf314, proNP-A and proNP-B), it was aimed to discover diagnostic/vaccine candidate epitopes and to design a multi-epitope peptide vaccine against this pathogen. After the in silico evaluation, three prominent diagnostic/vaccine candidate epitopes (EAKDSK, LLPHIRILVY, and FYAKLLPHIRILVYS) with the highest antigenicities were discovered and a potentially highly immunogenic/antigenic multi-epitope peptide vaccine (NaeVac) was designed against the brain-eating amoeba N. fowleri causing human meningitis.

A Scopus-Based Bibliometric Analysis of Global Tuberculosis Publications: 1849-2020.

OBJECTIVE: Tuberculosis continues to become a serious public-health concern in many countries despite efforts to prevent and control global tuberculosis infections. MATERIAL AND METHODS: This study aims to present bibliometric analysis of the period 1849-2020 tuberculosis publications that are published by global researchers and indexed in the Scopus database. Although many studies have been carried out on tuberculosis, there is no study that performs bibliometric analysis of publications in this field in such a wide range of dates. Tuberculosis publications searched in the Scopus database between the period 1849-2020 were analyzed. Data on tuberculosis were presented by analyzing the number of publications, the language of publication, the countries that contribute the most to the literature, the most active institutions, the most cited publications, active authors and active journals, using appropriate quantitative and qualitative bibliometric indicators. RESULTS: 263,234 articles, published between 1849 and 2020 and searched in the Scopus database, were evaluated. The most articles (n= 8.344) were published in 2020. A total of 112,121 articles were published between 2001 and 2020. The most used publication lan- guage in the articles was English (62.48%), followed by Russian (7.25%). The country that contributed the most to the literature was the United States (13.81%), followed by India (7.18%). 3.9% of the articles were published in the journal "Tuberculosis and Lung Diseases". CONCLUSION: The results of the present bibliometric study are expected to shed light on the planning of future tuberculosis studies and the development of health policies toward tuberculosis. Research output is low in some countries, which should make larger investments in international and national collaborative research projects in the field of tuberculosis. If doing so, many countries of limited source will benefit from research that offer novel diagnostic and screening technology of tuberculosis.