Novel Hematological Biomarker Adopted for Early Sepsis Detection Emerges as Predictor of Severity for COVID Infection.

Sepsis is a major health care burden with significant contribution to morbidity, mortality, and hospital resource utilization. Monocyte Distribution Width (MDW), the novel hematological biomarker, was clinically implemented in our laboratory for early detection of sepsis (ESId) in 2019. When COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, we noticed some similarities of the laboratory data of the COVID patients with patients previously diagnosed with sepsis.

Subtle vascular and astrocytic changes in the brain of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients.

Background And Purpose: In the central nervous system, a multitude of changes have been described associated with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, such as microglial activation, perivascular lymphocyte cuffing, hypoxic-ischaemic changes, microthrombosis, infarcts or haemorrhages. It was sought here to assess the vascular basement membranes (vBMs) and surrounding perivascular astrocytes for any morphological changes in acute respiratory syndrome (coronavirus disease 2019, COVID-19) patients.

Methods: The light microscopy morphology of the vBMs and perivascular astrocytes from brains of 14 patients with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection was analysed and compared to four control patients utilizing fluorescent immunohistochemistry for collagen IV and astrocytes (GFAP), endothelia (CD31), tight junction 1 (TJ1) adhesion protein, as well as the aquaporin 4 (AQP4) water channel.

A Case Report of Acquired Factor X Deficiency in a Patient With Multiple Myeloma.

Multiple myeloma is a plasma cell neoplasm characterized by clonal proliferation of immunoglobulin producing terminally differentiated B cells. Classically patients are described to present with bone pain, hypercalcemia, anemia, and/or renal impairment. A less described clinical manifestation related to the myeloma is acquired coagulation abnormalities including paraprotein interfering with the coagulation cascade or exhibiting specific antibody activity.