Lack of childhood friendships linked to suicidal thoughts in over-50s.An international University of Helsinki study has found that adverse childhood circumstances increase the risk of suicidal ideation in later life.

Published in the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry, the study used AI algorithms to explore the long-term effects of early-life adversities on later mental health. The machine learning algorithms employed in the study covered over 46,000 individuals aged 50 or above and living in Europe and Israel.

Atopic dermatitis, a common chronic inflammatory skin disease, has an unclear etiology and may involve multiple factors such as genetic predisposition, immune abnormalities, and impaired skin barrier function. Currently, there is no specific medication available for the complete cure of atopic dermatitis. The current treatment approaches mainly focus on symptom relief and control rather than curative treatment. Some commonly used medications for atopic dermatitis, such as topical corticosteroids and immunosuppressants, may have certain adverse reactions and side effects. This review summarizes the research progress on natural extracts in the treatment of atopic dermatitis, aiming to provide a foundation for the development of safe and side-effect-free medications.

Objective

There are limited data on the use of the creation tuberculin skin test (C-TST) for detecting tuberculosis (TB) infection (TBI) in individuals under 18 years of age. We conducted a study to assess the diagnostic accuracy of C-TST in this population.

Methods

A double-blind, randomized controlled trial was conducted across 4 tertiary hospitals in China to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of the C-TST in detecting TBI in individuals under 18 years of age. Participants with suspected pulmonary TB, extrapulmonary TB, or non-TB pulmonary disease were enrolled. The primary outcome was the diagnostic accuracy of the C-TST. Secondary outcomes included the consistency among C-TST, the traditional tuberculin skin test (TST), and T-SPOT.TB assays in different subgroups, as well as the safety of C-TST. Each participant underwent all 3 tests simultaneously: T-SPOT.TB assay, TST, and C-TST.

Results

C-TST showed a sensitivity of 83.0 % (95 % CI, 68.7 %–91.9 %), while TST and T-SPOT.TB demonstrated sensitivities of 80.9 % (95 % CI, 66.3 %–90.4 %) and 76.6 % (95 % CI, 61.6 %–87.2 %), respectively. The specificities of C-TST, TST, and T-SPOT.TB were 100 % (95 % CI, 91.9 %–100 %), 98.0 % (95 % CI, 87.8 %–99.9 %), and 100 % (95 % CI, 90.9 %–100 %), respectively. The consistency between C-TST and T-SPOT.TB was high (kappa = 0.847). No serious adverse events (AEs) were reported.

Conclusions

This study demonstrates that C-TST is a reliable and safe diagnostic tool for detecting TBI in children and adolescents. It shows higher sensitivity than both T-SPOT.TB and the traditional TST, with no associated serious AEs. Therefore, C-TST is an effective and safe option for diagnosing TBI in this age group.