Search

Introduction Most older adults with isolated REM sleep behavior disorder (iRBD) are men, yet in younger adults there is greater parity between the sexes. Whether the clinical characteristics between women and men with iRBD may differ remains unclear. We aimed to analyze presenting clinical and demographic characteristics of iRBD in men and women. Methods We identified 130 women and 130 men with PSG confirmed iRBD who were matched for time of polysomnographic diagnosis, abstracted their clinical histories, and comparatively analyzed clinical characteristics between the sexes. Results RBD symptom onset average age (50.4 ± 20.0 vs. 55.4 ±16.9 years, p=0.03) and age at diagnosis (56.4 ±16.7 vs. 62.5 ± 13.3 years, p< 0.01) were younger in women than in men. Injury frequency was similar between groups. Antidepressant use prior to diagnosis (80.8% vs 53.0%, p< 0.01), psychiatric comorbidity (79.8% vs. 50.8%, p< 0.01) and chronic pain syndrome (39.2% vs. 17.4%, p< 0.01) diagnoses were more frequent in women than men. Insomnia (31.5% vs. 18.2%, p= 0.01), hypersomnoence (50.8% vs 37.9%, p=0.04) and overlap parasomnia disorder (13.8% vs 9.8%, p=0.06) were more frequent in women than men, while sleep apnea (43.1% vs. 70.5%, p < 0.01.) and vascular co-morbidity (62.3% vs 83.3%, p< 0.01) occurred more frequently in men than women. Autoimmunity was similar between sexes. Conclusion Women were younger when diagnosed, and had more frequent psychiatric diagnoses and antidepressant use, with different comorbid sleep disturbances and comorbidities than men with iRBD. Key sex differences in iRBD could imply different etiologies and aid accurate and timely diagnosis. Support (if any)

Pure erythroid leukemia (PEL) is a rare, aggressive subtype of acute myeloid leukemia with a poor prognosis. The diagnosis of PEL is often medically urgent, quite challenging, and is typically a diagnosis of exclusion requiring meticulous distinction from non-neoplastic erythroid proliferations, particularly florid erythroid hyperplasia/regeneration. Given the frequency of TP53 mutations in the molecular signature of PEL, we hypothesize that differential p53 expression by immunohistochemistry (IHC) may be useful in distinguishing PEL versus non-neoplastic erythroid conditions. We performed p53 IHC on 5 normal bone marrow, 46 reactive erythroid proliferations, and 27 PEL cases. We assessed the positivity and intensity of nuclear staining in pronormoblasts and basophilic normoblasts using a 0–3+ scale with 0 being absent (with internal positive controls) and 3 being strong nuclear positivity. A total of 26/27 PEL cases showed strong, uniform, diffuse intense staining by the neoplastic pronormoblasts versus 0/5 and 0/46 normal and reactive controls, respectively. The control cases show various staining patterns ranging from 0 to 3+ in scattered erythroid precursor cells. Uniform, strong p53 positivity is unique to PEL and discriminates this entity from a benign erythroid mimic. Thus, p53 IHC may be a useful marker in urgent medical cases to assist in the confirmation of a malignant PEL diagnosis while awaiting the results of additional ancillary studies such as cytogenetics.