To investigate serum BDNF and serotonin levels in children with tic disorders and explore their associations with disease severity and clinical subtypes.
Key Findings:
Serum BDNF levels were significantly lower in tic disorder patients than in healthy controls, declining further in moderate-to-severe cases.
Serum serotonin levels did not differ between mild tic disorder and healthy controls but were significantly reduced in moderate-to-severe tic disorder compared to mild cases.
ROC analysis showed BDNF had modest discriminative ability for identifying tic disorders and both BDNF and serotonin were useful in distinguishing disease severity.
Logistic regression identified sleep disturbances, family history of tic disorders, and decreased BDNF as independently associated with tic disorders.
Interpretation:
Reduced serum BDNF was associated with disease presence and severity, while decreased serotonin was mainly related to greater symptom severity.
Limitations:
The study's modest ROC performance indicates that serum BDNF and serotonin may provide auxiliary biological information but require validation in larger multicenter cohorts.
Conclusion:
Further research is needed for clinical application.
Patients with preoperative vitamin D deficiency had higher postoperative pain scores and opioid use after mastectomy, including more than triple the odds of moderate to severe pain within 24 hours of surgery.
