Search

Pregnancy complications associated with thrombophilia represent significant risks for maternal and fetal health, leading to adverse outcomes such as pre-eclampsia, recurrent pregnancy loss, and intra-uterine growth restriction (IUGR). They are caused by disruptions in key physiological processes, including the coagulation cascade, trophoblast invasion, angiogenesis, and immune control. Recent advancements in epigenetics have revealed that non-coding RNAs, especially microRNAs (miRNAs), long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), and extracellular vesicles (EVs) carrying these RNAs, play crucial roles in the regulation of these biological processes. This review aims to identify the epigenetic biomarkers that are the best candidates for evaluating thrombophilia-related pregnancy complications and for assessing the efficacy of anticoagulant and antiaggregant therapies. We emphasize their potential integration into personalized treatment plans, aiming to improve the risk assessment and therapy strategies for thrombophilic pregnancies. Future research should focus on validating these epigenetic biomarkers and establishing standardized protocols to enable their integration into clinical practice, paving the way for a precision medicine approach in obstetric care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men and a leading cause of death worldwide. Early detection is vital, as it often presents with vague symptoms such as nocturia and poor urinary stream. Diagnostic tools like PSA tests, ultrasound, PET-CT, and mpMRI are essential for prostate cancer management. The PI-RADS system helps assess malignancy risk based on imaging. While mpMRI, which includes T1, T2, DWI, and dynamic contrast-enhanced imaging (DCE), is the standard, bpMRI offers a contrast-free alternative using only T2 and DWI. This reduces costs, acquisition time, and the risk of contrast-related side effects but has limitations in detecting higher-risk PI-RADS 3 and 4 lesions. This study compared bpMRI's diagnostic accuracy to mpMRI, focusing on prostate volume and PI-RADS scoring. Both methods showed strong inter-rater agreement for prostate volume (ICC 0.9963), confirming bpMRI's reliability in this aspect. However, mpMRI detected more complex conditions, such as periprostatic fat infiltration and iliac lymphadenopathy, which bpMRI missed. While bpMRI offers advantages like reduced cost and no contrast use, it is less effective for higher-risk lesions, making mpMRI more comprehensive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer related death in mean worldwide. Early detection of prostate cancer is currently still based on digital rectal examination, transrectal ultrasonography and PSA testing. Unfortunately, the PSA level is not specific for cancer, chronic or acute prostatic inflammation and benign prostate enlargement being also associated with higher levels of PSA. Moreover, only 39% of biopsies indicated by digital rectal examination were positive for cancer, so the discovery of new biomarkers that could improve diagnostic accuracy is urgently needed. Circulating miRNA is a sort non-coding RNA with a length varying between 19-26 nucleotides, which has the capacity to regulate genes by translation or inhibition. miRNAs are highly stable in blood and tissue samples and also have been identified in saliva and urine, which could make them the perfect biomarker for the detection and prognosis of prostate cancer. A number of significant studies have already demonstrated the overexpression of miR 32, miR26a, miR181a, miR196a, miR25, miR92 in tumor samples and the downregulation of miR 205 and miR2014 in prostate cancer patients compared with controls. Reports regarding the evaluation of prostate cancer prognosis by using miRNAs are supported by the association between the downregulation of miR16, miR34a, miR 126, miR 205, miR146a and metastasis, while miR146 was proven to be involved in castrate resistant prostate cancer. Many studies have shown dysregulated expression of miRNAs in patients suffering of different neoplastic pathologies, like breast, gastric and prostate cancer, which will make mandatory the use of miRNAs as detection and prognostic biomarkers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]