Great efforts focus on early detection of autism spectrum disorder, although some scientists and policy-makers have questioned early universal screening. The aim of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of the different screening tools. Several electronic databases were used to identify published studies. A Bayesian model was used to estimate the screening accuracy. The pooled sensitivity was 0.72 (95% CI 0.61–0.81), and the specificity was 0.98 (95% CI 0.97–0.99). Subgroup analyses to remove heterogeneity indicated sensitivity was 0.77 (95% CI 0.69–0.84), and specificity was 0.99 (95% CI 0.97–0.99; SD ≤ 0.01). Level 1 screening tools for ASD showed consistent statistically significant results and therefore are adequate to detect autism at 14–36 months.

Despite the increasing knowledge about the genetic alterations and molecular pathways involved in gliomas, few studies have investigated the association between the gene expression profiles (GEP) and both cytogenetics and histopathology of gliomas. Here, we analyzed the GEP (U133Plus2.0 chip) of 40 gliomas (35 astrocytic tumors, 3 oligodendrogliomas, and 2 mixed tumors) and their association with tumor cytogenetics and histopathology. Unsupervised and supervised analyses showed significantly different GEP in low- vs high-grade gliomas, the most discriminating genes including genes involved in the regulation of cell proliferation, apoptosis, DNA repair, and signal transduction. In turn, among glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), 3 subgroups of tumors were identified according to their GEP, which were closely associated with the cytogenetic profile of their ancestral tumor cell clones: (i) EGFR amplification, (ii) isolated trisomy 7, and (iii) more complex karyotypes. In summary, our results show a clear association between the GEP of gliomas and tumor histopathology; additionally, among grade IV astrocytoma, GEP are significantly associated with the cytogenetic profile of the ancestral tumor cell clone. Further studies in larger series of patients are necessary to confirm our observations.

Meningiomas contain highly variable levels of infiltrating tissue macrophages (TiMa) and other immune cells. In this study we investigated the potential association between the number and immunophenotype of inflammatory and other immune cells infiltrating the tumor as evaluated by multiparameter flow cytometry, and the clinico-biological, cytogenetic and gene expression profile (GEP) of 75 meningioma patients. Overall, our results showed a close association between the amount and cellular composition of the inflammatory and other immune cell infiltrates and the cytogenetic profile of the tumors. Notably, tumors with isolated monosomy 22/del(22q) showed greater numbers of TiMa, NK cells and (recently)-activated CD69⁺ lymphocytes versus meningiomas with diploid and complex karyotypes. In addition, in the former cytogenetic subgroup of meningiomas, tumor-infiltrating TiMa also showed a more activated and functionally mature phenotype, as reflected by a greater fraction of CD69⁺, CD63⁺, CD16⁺ and CD33⁺ cells. GEP at the mRNA level showed a unique GEP among meningiomas with an isolated monosomy 22/del(22q) versus all other cases, which consisted of increased expression of genes involved in inflammatory/immune response, associated with an M1 TiMa phenotype. Altogether, these results suggest that loss of expression of specific genes coded in chromosome 22 (e.g. MIF) is closely associated with an increased homing and potentially also anti-tumoral effect of TiMa, which could contribute to explain the better outcome of this specific good-prognosis cytogenetic subgroup of meningiomas.