Risk of microangiopathy in type 2 diabetes mellitus patients with or without chronic hepatitis C: Results of a retrospective long-term controlled cohort study.

Background: Patients with chronic hepatitis C have an increased risk of diabetes mellitus but the type and risk of developing diabetes-related complications have not yet been evaluated.

Methods: In order to compare the incidence of diabetic microangiopathy in patients with new onset diabetes without microangiopathy we recruited 54 hepatitis C virus (HCV)-positive and 119 HCV-negative patients from January 2005 to December 2006. All patients were followed-up every 6 months for liver and diabetic complications and incidence of cardiovascular diseases up to December 2012 when data were retrospectively analyzed.

A comparison between lactose breath test and quick test on duodenal biopsies for diagnosing lactase deficiency in patients with self-reported lactose intolerance.

Background: A lactose breath test (LBT) is usually used to diagnose lactase deficiency, and a lactose quick test (LQT) has been proposed as a new test on duodenal biopsies to detect this disorder.

Goals: We aimed to assess the diagnostic accuracy of LBT and LQT and their ability to predict the clinical response to a lactose-free diet in patients with self-reported lactose intolerance.

Study: Fifty-five patients (age 47 ± 14 y; M/F 15/36) underwent upper gastrointestinal endoscopy and 25g-LBT.

Overweight is a risk factor for both erosive and non-erosive reflux disease.

Introduction: Studies have reported that the association between overweight and erosive oesophagitis is very strong, whilst seeming less consistent with non-erosive reflux disease.

Aim: We have hypothesized that this difference may be due to the heterogeneity of endoscopy-negative population.

Methods: We studied 81 patients with erosive oesophagitis, 48 controls and 295 endoscopy-negative patients classified by impedance-pH-testing as: (1) pH-POS (abnormal acid exposure); (2) hypersensitive oesophagus (normal acid exposure/SAP+); (3) functional heartburn (normal acid exposure/SAP-).

The added value of impedance-pH monitoring to Rome III criteria in distinguishing functional heartburn from non-erosive reflux disease.

Introduction: Functional heartburn is defined by Rome III criteria as an endoscopy-negative condition with normal oesophageal acid exposure time, negative symptom association to acid reflux and unsatisfactory response to proton pump inhibitors. These criteria underestimated the role of non-acid reflux.

Aim: To assess the contribution of impedance-pH with symptom association probability (SAP) analysis in identifying endoscopy-negative patients with reflux disease and separating them from functional heartburn.