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Background: Prurigo nodularis (PN) is a chronic pruritic skin disease which can greatly impact patients' quality of life. Moreover, the pathogenesis remains unclear, making it a difficult-to-treat condition., Aims: To investigate the expression of interleukin-31 (IL-31) in serum and skin biopsy specimens of PN patients and healthy subjects and identify its possible correlation to disease severity and itch intensity., Methods: Patients with PN and healthy volunteers were recruited for the study. Expression levels of IL-31 were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and immunohistochemistry. Baseline characteristics, disease activity, itch intensity, and related laboratory results were collected., Results: Forty-three PN patients and 31 healthy subjects participated in our study. The PN patients had significantly higher mean serum IL-31 levels than the healthy subjects (52.9 ± 18.2 versus 36.3 ± 10.7 pg/ml, p  < 0.001). Epidermal and dermal PN lesions also exhibited significantly higher IL-31 expression compared with the healthy skin ( p  < 0.001 and p  = 0.01, respectively). However, there was no significant difference in serum or lesional expression of IL-31 by disease severity or itch intensity., Conclusion: Increased IL-31 expression in serum and PN lesions suggests that IL-31 has a potential role in the pathogenesis of PN., Competing Interests: Competing interests: The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article., (© The Author(s), 2022.)

Objective: To investigate the neurological recovery of Frankel A spinal giant cell tumor (GCT) patients after they had received a Total En Bloc Spondylectomy (TES)., Materials and Methods: We retrospectively recorded data of three patients (two females) with mobile spine GCT (T6, T10, and L2) Enneking stage III with complete paralysis before surgery, who had undergone TES in our institute from January 2018 to September 2020. The duration of neurologic recovery to Frankel E was the primary outcome. The intra-operative blood loss, operative time, operative-related complications, and the local recurrence were the secondary outcomes., Results: The duration of suffering from Frankel A to TES surgery was 2 months for the T6 patient, 3 weeks for the T10 patient, and 1 month for the L2 patient. Three patients had achieved full neurological recovery to Frankel E within 6 months after TES (T6 for 5 months, T10 for 3 months, and L2 for 3 months). The average blood loss was 2833.33 ml and the mean operative time was 400 min. Up until the last follow-up (13-25 months), no evidence of local recurrences had been found in any of the three patients., Conclusion: Frankel A spinal GCT patients can achieve full neurological recovery after TES, if the procedure is performed within 3 months after complete paraplegia. TES can effectively control any local recurrences.