Background and Objectives: Psoriasis is a chronic immune-mediated inflammatory disease requiring reliable diagnostic and monitoring tools. Salivary interleukins have emerged as promising non-invasive biomarkers, reflecting systemic inflammation and offering practical advantages such as ease of collection and improved patient compliance. Materials and Methods: This review synthesizes the current evidence on key salivary cytokines—IL-1β, IL-6, TNF-α, and IL-17—in relation to psoriasis pathogenesis, diagnosis, and treatment monitoring. It also compares saliva to blood-based diagnostics, emphasizing benefits like cost-effectiveness and suitability for repeated sampling. Methodological challenges, including heterogeneity in collection protocols and limited longitudinal data, are critically examined. Results: Advances in biologic therapies have deepened the understanding of psoriasis immunopathogenesis, highlighting interleukins as central biomarkers. Recent findings identify IL-37 and IL-38 as novel regulatory cytokines with anti-inflammatory roles. While elevated serum TNF-α levels in psoriatic patients are well documented, some inconsistencies persist. Notably, saliva has proven to be a viable alternative diagnostic fluid, supporting large-scale screening and routine clinical monitoring. Conclusions: Salivary interleukins—particularly IL-1β, IL-6, TNF-α, and IL-17—represent valuable, non-invasive biomarkers for early detection, disease severity assessment, and therapeutic response monitoring in psoriasis. Standardizing saliva-based methods and conducting large-scale studies are essential next steps to support their integration into personalized clinical practice.

Background and Objectives: Tobacco smoking is the most important cause of chronic diseases and premature death worldwide. Very brief advice (VBA) and brief advice (BA) represent evidence-based interventions designed to increase quit attempts. These are appropriate for all smokers, regardless of their motivation to quit, and involve several steps regarding the assessment, advice, and action. This review aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of these brief interventions offered by general practitioners (GPs) in smoking cessation. Materials and Methods: A systematic search for articles that presented these interventions as an aid to support smoking cessation was conducted. The rate of successful smoking cessation was evaluated following interventions offered by general practitioners, regardless of the patients’ present motivation to quit. Results: We have checked if these interventions can be used as an innovative method to help active smokers make an informed decision regarding their behaviour. Conclusions: Assisted/supported/guided by a general practitioner, current cigarette smokers can decide to quit smoking and identify the best way of cessation. We processed relevant data where brief interventions were used as the main counselling method to aid smoking cessation, regardless of using nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), heated tobacco products (HTPs), or vaping.

For the public health system in Romania, the opinion of patients and one of the doctors has become an important source of information in detecting problems and developing effective action plans to improve the quality of medical services. Subjects were included in the cross-sectional study conducted through qualitative and quantitative methods. From a total of 592 hospitalized patients between October 2021 and March 2022, 41% completed the satisfaction evaluation questionnaires. According to the obtained results, it is found that socio-demographic variables influence the level of satisfaction of hospitalized patients. Thus, women tend to have a lower level of satisfaction than men, in terms of the quality of accommodation and food and pay more attention to communication with the attending physician. Both men and women had a satisfactory overall impression of the quality of care received at discharge. There was also an increased level of satisfaction for rural patients in all areas, but lower scores for patients with higher education, who were less satisfied with the quality of accommodation, food and cleanliness. In conclusion, when conducting a patient satisfaction survey, one must be aware of the effect of many variables on patient responses.

Background and Objectives: Hematological disorders, especially chronic anemia and coagulation disorders, are common in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Severe anemia is associated with increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in this special group of patients and is also responsible for decreased hope and quality of life. Despite the use of appropriate iron therapy and erythropoietin-stimulating agents, red blood cell transfusion is occasionally required, usually in the setting of acute bleeding or for correction of perioperative anemia. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the progression of chronic diseases and worsened the outcomes for patients with nephrological conditions. As a precautionary measure against infections, patients’ access to hospitalization for their procedures has been reduced and their chronic complications, including hematological abnormalities, have gotten out of control. Materials and Methods: Our retrospective observational study was designed to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on blood transfusion for the patients with chronic kidney disease hospitalized in our emergency county medical unit, over a period of four years (2019–2022) who were admitted or at least referred for evaluation to the Nephrology department. We also followed the measures adopted to ensure the necessary blood products during this time. Results: Between 2190–2022, a total of 24,096 hospitalized patients were transfused at the Emergency County Clinical Hospital in Constanta, Romania. Meanwhile, in the nephrology and other medical or surgical wards of our medical unit, 1590 CKD patients were transfused with different blood derivatives. During the pandemic years, as expected, the number of transfused patients and transfused blood units decreased by 4% and 7%, respectively, in comparison with the pre-pandemic year, 2019. Unlike the general trend of transfusion activity, more patients with CKD transfused in 2022 (580) than before the pandemic (414 in 2019), and the number of blood units was higher in 2022 than in 2019 for red blood products and plasma. Between 2020–2022, from the total number of transfused patients in our study, 254 with CKD patients (16%) and 798 non-CKD (4%) died in-hospital. Conclusions: The adaptive strategies implemented to ensure the necessary blood products in the hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic mainly included restrictive transfusion and limitation of elective surgical procedures. The subject matter of the article is important as blood shortages are a problem that healthcare workers may encounter in future pandemics.

In recent years, numerous scientific research papers have focused on the analysis of immunological, biochemical, ultrastructural, molecular and genetic factors that govern the clinical aspects of basal cell carcinomas. This retrospective study was carried out in the Clinical Department of Dermatovenerology at the County Emergency Clinical Hospital “Sf. Apostol Andrei”, Constanta. The research included a total of 140 patients treated in the clinic, with a diagnosis of basal cell epithelioma. We analyzed several biochemical and hematological markers including creatinine, male HDL cholesterol, female HDL cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, urea, serum glucose. More than half of patients with BCC present data of possible hepatic impairment and high atherogenic risk.

Urticaria is one of the best-known dermatological diseases and affects between 15% and 25% of the global population. Angioedema, an acute complication of urticaria, affects about 3% of the population. The retrospective study took into account the patients diagnosed with urticaria in the emergency room of the Măcin City Hospital, and aimed to assess the epidemiological aspects during the 2015-2020 period, and too see how it the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic influenced the incidence of diagnosed urticaria in the emergency room of a local hospital from South-East Romania. The impact of SARS-CoV-2 pandemic might be observed in the ER activity of city hospitals, where a decreased number of presentations was observed, and, at the same time with an increase in the proportion and absolute number of urticaria cases.