Immunosuppression in adult liver transplant recipients: a 2024 update from the Italian Liver Transplant Working Group.

Purpose: Advances in surgical procedures and immunosuppressive therapies have considerably improved the outcomes of patients who have undergone liver transplantation in the past few decades. In 2020, the Italian Liver Transplant Working Group published practice-oriented algorithms for immunosuppressive therapy (IT) in adult liver transplant (LT) recipients. Due to the rapidly evolving LT field, regular updates to the recommendations are required.

Contemporary diagnosis and treatment of conduct disorder in youth.

Introduction: Conduct disorder (CD) is characterized by repetitive and persistent antisocial behaviors, being among the most frequently reported reasons of referral in youth. CD is a highly heterogeneous disorder, with possible specifiers defined according to age at onset, Limited Prosocial Emotions (LPE) otherwise known as Callous-Unemotional (CU) traits, Emotional Dysregulation (ED), and patterns of comorbidity, each with its own specific developmental trajectories.

Areas Covered: The authors review the evidence from published literature on the clinical presentations, diagnostic procedures, psychotherapeutic and psychoeducational approaches, and pharmacological interventions from RCT and naturalistic studies in youth.

Pectus Excavatum: Consensus and Controversies in Clinical Practice.

Background: Pectus excavatum is the most common congenital anterior chest wall deformity. Currently, a wide variety of diagnostic protocols and criteria for corrective surgery are being used. Their use is predominantly based on local preferences and experience.

Long-term safety of methylphenidate in children and adolescents with ADHD: 2-year outcomes of the Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Drugs Use Chronic Effects (ADDUCE) study.

Background: Methylphenidate is the most frequently prescribed medication for the treatment of ADHD in children and adolescents in many countries. Although many randomised controlled trials support short-term efficacy, tolerability, and safety, data on long-term safety and tolerability are scarce. The aim of this study was to investigate the safety of methylphenidate over a 2-year period in relation to growth and development, psychiatric health, neurological health, and cardiovascular function in children and adolescents.

Neuropsychological Characterization of Aggressive Behavior in Children and Adolescents with CD/ODD and Effects of Single Doses of Medications: The Protocol of the Matrics_WP6-1 Study.

Aggressive behaviors and disruptive/conduct disorders are some of the commonest reasons for referral to youth mental health services; nevertheless, the efficacy of therapeutic interventions in real-world clinical practice remains unclear. In order to define more appropriate targets for innovative pharmacological therapies for disruptive/conduct disorders, the European Commission within the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) funded the MATRICS project (Multidisciplinary Approaches to Translational Research in Conduct Syndromes) to identify neural, genetic, and molecular factors underpinning the pathogenesis of aggression/antisocial behavior in preclinical models and clinical samples. Within the program, a multicentre case-control study, followed by a single-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over, randomized acute single-dose medication challenge, was conducted at two Italian sites.

Metabolomic Characterization of Pediatric Acute-Onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome (PANS).

Introduction: PANS is a controversial clinical entity, consisting of a complex constellation of psychiatric symptoms, adventitious changes, and expression of various serological alterations, likely sustained by an autoimmune/inflammatory disease. Detection of novel biomarkers of PANS is highly desirable for both diagnostic and therapeutic management of affected patients. Analysis of metabolites has proven useful in detecting biomarkers for other neuroimmune-psychiatric diseases.

Use of Machine Learning to Investigate the Quantitative Checklist for Autism in Toddlers (Q-CHAT) towards Early Autism Screening.

In the past two decades, several screening instruments were developed to detect toddlers who may be autistic both in clinical and unselected samples. Among others, the Quantitative CHecklist for Autism in Toddlers (Q-CHAT) is a quantitative and normally distributed measure of autistic traits that demonstrates good psychometric properties in different settings and cultures. Recently, machine learning (ML) has been applied to behavioral science to improve the classification performance of autism screening and diagnostic tools, but mainly in children, adolescents, and adults.

A Neurodevelopment Approach for a Transitional Model of Early Onset Schizophrenia.

In the last decades, the conceptualization of schizophrenia has dramatically changed, moving from a neurodegenerative process occurring in early adult life to a neurodevelopmental disorder starting be-fore birth, showing a variety of premorbid and prodromal symptoms and, in relatively few cases, evolving in the full-blown psychotic syndrome. High rates of co-occurring different neurodevelopmental disorders such as Autism spectrum disorder and ADHD, predating the onset of SCZ, and neurobio-logical underpinning with significant similarities, support the notion of a pan-developmental disturbance consisting of impairments in neuromotor, receptive language, social and cognitive development. Con-sidering that many SCZ risk factors may be similar to symptoms of other neurodevelopmental psychi-atric disorders, transition processes from child & adolescent to adult systems of care should include both high risk people as well as subject with other neurodevelopmental psychiatric disorders with different levels of severity.

Editorial: Two Centimeters More or Less. How Much Does It Matter to an Adolescent or a Young Adult With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder?

Stimulants are the first-line medication for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and methylphenidate (MPH) is the first choice in Europe, with good efficacy and acceptable tolerability in a short-term course during childhood and adolescence. ADHD is, however a chronic condition, and patients can receive pharmacological treatment for a long period of time with understandable concerns related to long-term risks. Beside the well-known mild and transient adverse effects (ie, sleep disturbance, nervousness, anorexia, headache, and abdominal pain), in the last decade, emphasis has been placed on several less common, but potentially more serious, effects occurring with prolonged use, and in particular on a possible drug-related impact of medications on growth and pubertal maturation.

Reading-writing disorder in children with idiopathic epilepsy.

Several studies have documented learning disabilities (LDs) in subjects with epilepsy, who have been shown to be at greater risk of mild neuropsychological damage, with the consequent risk of academic failure. This retrospective study aimed to investigate the peculiarities of reading and writing disorders in subjects with idiopathic epilepsy. The reading and writing performance of 35 children affected by reading and writing disorders and idiopathic epilepsy (R/WD + E group) has been compared with the performance of 37 children with only reading and writing disorders (R/WD group).

Pediatric Acute-Onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome: A Data Mining Approach to a Very Specific Constellation of Clinical Variables.

Pediatric acute onset neuropsychiatric syndrome (PANS) is a clinically heterogeneous disorder presenting with: unusually abrupt onset of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) or severe eating restrictions, with at least two concomitant cognitive, behavioral, or affective symptoms such as anxiety, obsessive-compulsive behavior, and irritability/depression. This study describes the clinical and laboratory variables of 39 children (13 female and 26 male) with a mean age at recruitment of 8.6 years (standard deviation 3.

Safety and Tolerability of Antipsychotic Drugs in Pediatric Patients: Data From a 1-Year Naturalistic Study.

Antipsychotic drugs (APs) are increasingly used to treat a variety of psychiatric disorders in children and adolescents. However, their safety and tolerability profiles, when used in a developmental age context, show different characteristics from the ones observed in adult patients. Treatment with APs in pediatric patients is often long-term.

Predictive validity for the clinical diagnosis of a new parent questionnaire, the CABI, compared with CBCL.

Background: The questionnaires completed by the parents give a first general information on the behavioral problems of the child-adolescent, as a useful orientation to the clinical evaluation. The Child and Adolescent Behavior Inventory (CABI) is a 75-item parent questionnaire, which explores a large number of problem areas. The study of its predictive validity for the clinical diagnosis, in comparison with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ()-oriented scales of the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), can assess whether its use may be advantageous.

Inflammatory Biomarkers are Correlated with Some Forms of Regressive Autism Spectrum Disorder.

: Several studies have tried to investigate the role of inflammatory biomarkers in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and their correlations with clinical phenotypes. Despite the growing research in this topic, existing data are mostly contradictory. : Eighty-five ASD preschoolers were assessed for developmental level, adaptive functioning, gastrointestinal (GI), socio-communicative and psychopathological symptoms.

Vocal and motor behaviors as a possible expression of gastrointestinal problems in preschoolers with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Background: Gastrointestinal (GI) problems are one of the most frequent comorbidities in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) but can be under-recognized due to the concomitant communication difficulties of this population. Accordingly, some associated behaviors (AB) such as verbal and motor behaviors (VB and MB, respectively) have been identified as a possible expression of an underlying GI problem and evaluated through an ad hoc questionnaire (the Associated Behaviors Questionnaire -ABQ-). The aims of this study were to investigate the presence and the type of AB in an Italian sample of ASD preschoolers, and to determine their correlations with GI problems.