Search

Objective: To estimate the pooled prevalence of cancer in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) cases who were under treatment with rituximab., Methods: We searched PubMed, Scopus, EMBASE, Web of Science, and google scholar along with gray literature up to April 2021. The search strategy included the MeSH and text words as (("CD20 Antibody" AND Rituximab) OR "Rituximab CD20 Antibody" OR Mabthera OR "IDEC-C2B8 Antibody" OR "IDEC C2B8 Antibody" OR IDEC-C2B8 OR "IDEC C2B8" OR GP2013 OR Rituxan OR rituximab) AND ((Sclerosis AND multiple) OR (sclerosis AND disseminated) OR "disseminated sclerosis" OR "multiple sclerosis" OR "acute fulminating")., Results: The literature search revealed 3577 articles, after deleting duplicates 2066 remained. For the meta-analysis, 22 studies were included. Totally, 15599 patients were enrolled while 133 cancers were detected. The pooled prevalence of cancer in MS patients under treatment with rituximab is 1in 100,000 (I2 = 99.9%, p < 0.001)., Conclusion: The results of this systematic review and meta-analysis show that the pooled prevalence of cancer in MS patients who received rituximab is 1 in 100,000 cases., (Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier España, S.L.U.)

Objective: To estimate the pooled incidence of Bell's palsy after COVID-19 vaccination., Methods: PubMed, Scopus, EMBASE, Web of Science, and Google Scholar were searched by 2 independent researchers. We also searched the grey literature including references of the references and conference abstracts. We extracted data regarding the total number of participants, first author, publication year, the country of origin, sex, type of vaccines, and the number of patients who developed Bell's palsy after COVID-19 vaccination., Results: The literature search revealed 370 articles, subsequently deleting duplicates 227 remained. After careful evaluation of the full texts, 20 articles remained for meta-analysis. The most commonly administered vaccines were Pfizer followed by Moderna. In total, 4.54e+07 individuals received vaccines against COVID-19, and 1739 cases developed Bell's palsy. In nine studies, controls (individuals without vaccination) were enrolled. The total number of controls was 1 809 069, of whom 203 developed Bell's palsy. The incidence of Bell's palsy after COVID-19 vaccines was ignorable. The odds of developing Bell's palsy after COVID-19 vaccines was 1.02 (95% CI: 0.79-1.32) (I2 = 74.8%, P < .001)., Conclusion: The results of this systematic review and meta-analysis show that the incidence of peripheral facial palsy after COVID-19 vaccination is ignorable and vaccination does not increase the risk of developing Bell's palsy. Maybe, Bell's palsy is a presenting symptom of a more severe form of COVID-19, so clinicians must be aware of this., (Copyright © 2023 Sociedad Española de Neurología. Published by Elsevier España, S.L.U. All rights reserved.)