Gastrointestinal (GI) tumors are the most commonly diagnosed cancers worldwide and the second leading cause of cancer-related death. Endoscopy is the gold standard for diagnosis of GI cancers. Early diagnosis of GI tumors by endoscopy at the precancerous ...

Background/Objectives: Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a prevalent metabolic disease characterized by chronic hyperglycemia and progressive microvascular complications, including retinopathy, nephropathy, and neuropathy. While traditional markers like HbA1c capture average glycemic control, they often fail to predict microvascular damage risk. Glycated CD59 (GCD59), a complement regulatory protein modified under hyperglycemic conditions, has emerged as a promising biomarker reflecting complement dysregulation and endothelial injury. This study aimed to examine the relationship between plasma GCD59 levels and the presence of microvascular complications in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus and to evaluate whether GCD59 shows potential for future use as a predictive biomarker, pending prospective validation. Methods: In this single-center, prospective case–control study, 246 participants were enrolled: 82 healthy controls, 82 T2DM patients without microvascular complications (DM − MC), and 82 T2DM patients with microvascular complications (DM + MC). Microvascular complications were defined based on standardized criteria for retinopathy, nephropathy, and neuropathy. Plasma GCD59 levels were measured using validated ELISA methods. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses, forest plots, and odds ratio calculations were employed to assess the discriminatory performance of GCD59. Statistical significance was set at p < 0.05. Results: Plasma GCD59 levels were significantly elevated across all diabetic groups compared to healthy controls (p < 0.001), with the highest levels in the DM + MC group (median 4.5 ng/mL) versus DM − MC (median 1.9 ng/mL) and controls (median 1.2 ng/mL). ROC analysis demonstrated excellent diagnostic performance for distinguishing DM + MC from healthy controls (AUC = 0.946, sensitivity 89%, specificity 97.6%) and good performance for distinguishing DM + MC from DM − MC (AUC = 0.849, sensitivity 72%, specificity 87.8%). Forest plot analyses confirmed significantly elevated odds ratios for GCD59 across all microvascular subgroups. Importantly, GCD59 levels correlated positively with inflammatory markers (CRP, ESR, leukocyte count), suggesting a combined role of complement dysregulation and chronic inflammation in diabetic microangiopathy. Conclusions: Plasma GCD59 may be a promising biomarker for identifying T2DM patients who may be at increased risk for microvascular complications, independent of conventional glycemic markers. Given the cross-sectional design of this study, causal inference is not possible; prospective validation is required. The observed strong discriminatory performance highlights potential future clinical utility, pending further validation of diagnostic thresholds, assay standardization, and feasibility in routine care settings.

Key words: Diabetes mellitus; insulin resistance; oncostatin M; metabolic syndrome

Aim: In our study, we investigated the efficiency of the prognostic nutritional index (PNI) score and the CRP, age, platelet count, albumin level (CAPA) score predicting mortality and intensive car... Lay abstract The COVID-19 pandemic is a global health problem that affects all societies. In order to deal with this urgent situation, the rapid spread of the disease in outbreaks requires categori...

Background and aims: Favipiravir is a ribonucleic acid (RNA)-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRP) inhibitor antiviral agent used in the treatment of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). In this study, we investigated the changes in serum transaminase levels of patients and the relationship between serum transaminase elevation with mortality in patients who were hospitalized with the diagnosis of COVID-19 and received favipiravir treatment. Materials and methods: 454 patients who received favipiravir and 113 patients who did not receive favipiravir were evaluated. Serum transaminase levels of the patients were compared at baseline and after five days of treatment, and the relationship between serum transaminase elevation and mortality was investigated. Results: No significant aspartate aminotransferase (AST) or alanine aminotransferase (ALT) elevation was detected due to favipiravir treatment. AST elevation was found, respectively, as 133 (29.3%), 32 (28.3%) (p=0.100), ALT elevation as 112 (24.7%), 35 (29.3%) (p=0.100) in the groups receiving and not receiving favipiravir. High AST level was found as a risk factor for mortality in all patient groups (p=0.008). Conclusions: There was no statistically significant elevation in serum transaminase levels due to favipiravir use in patients hospitalized for COVID-19. A high level of AST is a significant risk factor to show mortality and intensive care unit (ICU) admission in patients with COVID-19.

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that patients should be categorized according to their risk group, patient follow-up and the use of health resources should be arranged according to this categorization. Therefore, practical and inexpensive biomarkers are needed. In this study, the relationship between neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet to lymphocyte ratio (PLR), mean platelet volume (MPV) and red blood cell distribution width (RDW) levels, which can be easily calculated by complete blood count, with mortality and intensive care unit (ICU) admission in COVID-19 disease was evaluated. Materials and Methods: 748 inpatients with positive COVID-19 PCR test were evaluated retrospectively. The NLR, PLR, MPV and RDW levels calculated from the complete blood count parameters of the patients at hospital admissions and their relationship with the mortality and the ICU admission in COVID-19 disease were evaluated. Results: In terms of mortality, a statistically significant difference was found between RDW levels in the evaluation performed in the patient groups who survived and died (p: 0.014). No statistically significant difference was found in NLR, PLR and MPV levels. In the evaluation made between ICU (+) and ICU (-) groups, a statistically significant difference was found in RDW and NLR levels (p: 0.042, p: 0.01, respectively). There was no statistically significant difference between PLR and MPV levels for ICU admission. Conclusion: RDW level was found to be associated with COVID-19 related mortality and ICU admission.