Impairment of social cognition in comparative studies of patients with schizophrenia and their healthy siblings. / Zaburzenia poznania spolecznego w badaniach porównawczych osób chorujacych na schizofrenie i ich zdrowego rodzenstwa.

Social cognition impairment is a significant neurocognitive disturbance observed during clinical course of schizophrenia. Deficits in this field observed in first- degree unaffected relatives have been suggested as a potential endophenotype. The main purpose of this study was to review the range of published articles on this topic, mainly from the last decade (2010-2021). A search in the online databases PubMed, Medline and Polish Medical Library using following keywords: schizophrenia, healthy sibling, social cognition, theory of mind, facial emotion recognition. Results of the review indicate on a substantial agreement on how to classify relatives' deficits in social cognition. Most analyzed studies indicate their level of neurocognitive disturbance in between schizophrenic siblings and controls. Schizophrenic patients present both theory of mind and facial emotion recognition impairment, comparable deficits have been observed to a lesser degree in their healthy siblings. It may be supposed that people with familial risk of schizophrenia may experience similar social cognition deficits as their sick relatives. Moreover, results of majority of studies reveal correlations of social cognition disturbances with cognitive dysfunctions and subclinical psychopathology in healthy siblings. However, further research on more numerous groups is needed to draw reliable conclusions on this topic.

Is Male Sex A Prognostic Factor in Papillary Thyroid Cancer?

Identifying risk factors is crucial for predicting papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) with severe course, which causes a clinical problem. The purpose of this study was to assess whether male sex can be such a predictive factor and to verify whether including it as a predictive factor of high initial risk of recurrence/persistence would help to enhance the value of the American Thyroid Association initial risk stratification system (ATA). We retrospectively analyzed 1547 PTC patients (1358 females and 189 males), treated from 1986 to 2018. The relationship between sex and clinicopathological features, response to therapy, and disease status was assessed. Men with PTC showed some adverse clinicopathological features more often than women, including angioinvasion, lymph node metastases, and tumor size > 40 mm. There were sex-related disparities with respect to response to initial therapy and final follow-up. Male sex is associated with some unfavorable clinicopathological features of PTC, which may affect response to initial therapy or final disease status. In our study, modification of the ATA system by including male sex as a risk factor does not enhance its value. Thus, further studies are needed to assess whether males require treatment modalities or oncological follow-up protocols that are different from those of females.