[Monitorering and complications by conservative treatment of severe acute pancreatitis].

Severe acute pancreatitis (SAP) is associated with a high morbidity and a mortality risk of up to 20%. Although much progress has occurred during the latest couple of years, there are still some major controversies on important issues such as monitoring, fluid therapy, antibiotic treatment, and nutrition. In this article we describe the underlying, pathophysiologic mechanisms responsible for organ failure in SAP, and the rationale for monitoring and conservative treatment of SAP.

Incomplete remission with short-term prednisolone treatment in collagenous colitis: a randomized study.

Background: Microscopic colitis is a disease of unknown aetiology characterized by chronic watery diarrhoea and diarrhoea can be eliminated by budesonide but frequently recurs when budesonide is stopped. We studied whether prednisolone could induce remission in patients with disabling, chronic diarrhoea due to microscopic colitis.

Methods: A double-blind, randomized (3:1) trial of oral prednisolone 50 mg daily or placebo for 2 weeks.

Ascites fluid and plasma calprotectin concentrations in liver disease.

Background: Calprotectin, a marker of neutrophil activation, has been associated with a poor prognosis in alcohol-induced cirrhosis. The aims were to study concentrations of calprotectin in patients with various liver diseases, and to further investigate the prognostic value of calprotectin in cirrhosis.

Methods: Plasma calprotectin concentrations were determined in 84 patients with alcohol-induced liver disease, 32 hepatitis B or C infected patients, 33 patients with liver disease of other aetiologies, 7 patients with combined aetiologies and in 24 patients with malignant disease.

Bile acid malabsorption or disturbed intestinal permeability in patients treated with enzyme substitution for exocrine pancreatic insufficiency is not caused by bacterial overgrowth.

Introduction: In some patients with severe exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, enzyme replacement therapy will not lead to clinical improvement or reduction of steatorrhea. Therefore, other mechanisms separately or in interplay with reduced enzyme secretion might be responsible for malabsorption in these patients.

Aims: To evaluate the prevalence of bacterial overgrowth, bile acid absorption capacity, and intestinal permeability in a group of patients with well-characterized exocrine pancreatic insufficiency.

Hepatic actinomycosis. A case report.

A case of hepatic actinomycosis contracted one year after removal of an intrauterine device during ongoing Actinomyces cervicitis is reported. During active disease, lymphocytes from the apparently fully immunocompetent patient were able to proliferate but not to produce the proinflammatory lymphokine gamma-interferon in response to Actinomyces antigen. This ability was only partly restored during antibiotic therapy.