Cancer remains a major health problem and is associated with cachexia in up to 80% of cases, leading to decreased survival and quality of life. Cachexia involves complex metabolic disturbances in both protein and energy balance, muscle wasting phenomena, weight loss, systemic inflammation, overall decreased performance status, and tolerability to treatment. The clinical impact of cancer cachexia is very complex, with early detection of cachectic patients and identification of predictive biomarkers being two key factors for improving survival. Thus, a better understanding of the complexity of cancer cachexia phenomena and its main pathophysiological mechanism is much needed. Our review highlights the most important information about cancer cachexia, aiming to disseminate updated research findings about this highly deadly condition.

Psoriasis is a chronic immune-mediated disease, linked to local and systemic inflammation and predisposing patients to a higher risk of associated comorbidities. Cytokine levels are not widely available for disease progression monitoring due to high costs. Validated low-cost and reliable markers are needed for assessing disease progression and outcome. This study aims to assess the reliability of blood-count-derived inflammatory markers as disease predictors and to identify prognostic factors for disease severity. Patients fulfilling the inclusion criteria were enrolled in this study. Patients were divided into three study groups according to disease severity measured by the Body Surface Area (BSA) score: mild, moderate, and severe psoriasis. White blood cell count (WBC), neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), derived neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (d-NLR), systemic immune index (SII), systemic inflammation response index (SIRI), and aggregate index of systemic inflammation (AISI) positively were correlated with disease severity (p < 0.005). d-NLR, NLR, and SII are independent prognostic factors for mild and moderate psoriasis (p < 0.05). d-NLR is the only independent prognostic factor for all three study groups. Moderate psoriasis is defined by d-NLR values between 1.49 and 2.19. NLR, PLR, d-NLR, MLR, SII, SIRI, and AISI are useful indicators of systemic inflammation and disease severity in psoriasis.

Psoriasis is an immune-mediated, chronic disorder that significantly alters patients’ quality of life and predisposes them to a higher risk of comorbidities, including liver fibrosis. Various non-invasive tests (NITs) have been validated to assess liver fibrosis severity, while blood-count-derived inflammatory markers have been proven to be reliable in reflecting inflammatory status in psoriatic disease. The fibrosis-4 (FIB-4) index became part of the newest guideline for monitoring psoriasis patients undergoing systemic treatment. Patients with psoriasis vulgaris and fulfilling inclusion criteria were enrolled in this study, aiming to assess for the first time in the literature whether such inflammatory markers are useful in predicting liver fibrosis. Based on internationally validated FIB-4 index values, patients were divided into two study groups: a low risk of significant fibrosis (LR-SF) and a high risk of significant fibrosis (HR-SF). Patients from HR-SF were significantly older and had higher values of the monocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio (MLR) (p < 0.001), which further significantly correlated with fibrosis severity (p < 0.001). Platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), systemic immune inflammation index (SII), platelet-to-white blood cell ratio (PWR), and aggregate index of systemic inflammations (AISI) significantly correlated negatively with liver fibrosis (p < 0.001). PWR proved to be the most reliable inflammatory predictor of fibrosis severity (AUC = 0.657). MLR, PWR, and AISI were independent inflammatory markers in multivariate analysis (p < 0.001), while the AST to platelet ratio index (APRI) and AST to ALT ratio (AAR) can be used as additional NITs for significant liver fibrosis (p < 0.001). In limited-resources settings, blood-count-derived inflammatory markers such as MLR, PWR, and AISI, respectively, and hepatic indexes APRI and AAR prove to be of particular help in predicting significant liver fibrosis.

(1) Introduction: Psoriasis is a chronic, immune-mediated disease that negatively impacts patients’ quality of life and predisposes them to cardiovascular or metabolic diseases. This paper aims to summarize the knowledge structure and future directions in psoriasis research by means of bibliometrics. (2) Material and methods: The Thomson Reuters Web of Science database was interrogated using preestablished keywords. A list of the top 100 most cited articles focusing solely on psoriasis was compiled and analyzed. VOSviewer software was used to assess and visualize collaboration networks, citation, co-citation and co-wording analysis, and bibliographic coupling. (3) Results: The articles were written by 902 authors from 20 countries and were published in 31 journals. The United States was at the forefront of this field. Griffiths, CEM had the most citations, while the most prolific institution was Rockefeller University, New York City. Pathogenesis, especially key-pathogenic factors, immune pathways, and epidemiology were the most discussed topics. Work published in the last decade focused on the use of biologics. Keywords such as “quality of life”, “efficacy”, and “necrosis-factor alpha” have been widely used. (4) Conclusion: Research interest regarding psoriasis is high, leading to the rapid development of this field. Treatment modalities, especially novel-targeted therapies, immune pathways, and an integrative approach to such cases are receiving great interest and represent research hotspots in the future.

Background/Objectives: The analysis of the complete blood count (CBC)-derived inflammatory indexes across different histological subtypes of lung cancer supports the early detection of tumor-induced inflammation and has a good predictive value for severity in cancer patients. The main objective of this article was to assess the variations in CBC-derived inflammatory markers across different histologic subtypes of lung cancer, with the final goal of identifying specific predictors of severity for each histologic subtype of lung cancer. Methods: We conducted a retrospective descriptive study that included 202 patients diagnosed with lung carcinoma at the Clinical County Hospital Mureș. The analyzed parameters were as follows: the histological type, the stage of the tumor, patients’ general data, and associated comorbidities. In addition, nine CBC-derived inflammatory indexes, like the neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), derived neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (d-NLR), monocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio (MLR), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), eosinophil-to-neutrophil ratio (ENR), eosinophil-to-monocyte ratio (EMR), systemic inflammatory index (SII), systemic inflammatory response index (SIRI), and aggregate index of systemic inflammation (AISI), were analyzed as predictors of severity and correlated with histologic findings. Results: The predictors of severity differed across the histologic subtypes. SIRI, d-NLR, and age were predictors of severity in adenocarcinoma patients, while the d-NLR, ENR, leukocyte, and neutrophil count predicted severity in squamous cell carcinoma. For SCLC patients, AISI, SIRI, SII, d-NLR, EMR, ENR, MLR, leukocyte count, lymphocyte count, neutrophil count, platelets count, COPD, smoking, and male gender were predictors for severity. Conclusions: Understanding the complexity and variations in the inflammatory response across different histologic types of lung cancer can personalize treatment regimens and target specific abnormal cellular lines, thus improving the outcome of this highly deadly condition.

Psoriasis is an immune-mediated disease, with various triggering factors, genetic predisposition, and an altered immune response concurring in the development of this disease. The eosinophil is a cell with an important role in various kinds of inflammatory processes. Scarce data are available regarding the role of the eosinophil in psoriasis. This study aims to address the overall relationship between eosinophil-count-derived inflammatory markers and psoriasis severity. There were 366 patients fulfilling the inclusion criteria included in this retrospective study and they were divided based on the body surface area (BSA) scale in mild and moderate-to-severe psoriasis. White blood cell (WBC), neutrophil, lymphocyte, monocyte, and eosinophil count, along with eosinophil-to-monocyte ratio (EMR) and eosinophil-to-neutrophil ratio (ENR) differed significantly between the two study groups. Eosinophil count, EMR, and ENR negatively correlated with disease severity. ENR is the most reliable eosinophil-count-derived marker in assessing psoriasis severity with an AUC of 0.627 and a cut-off value of 0.03. Eosinophil-count-derived inflammatory markers’ usefulness in appreciating disease severity was assessed for the first time in the literature in this study and proved to be reliable for the eosinophil count, EMR, and ENR.