A Latin American survey on demographic aspects of hospitalized, decompensated cirrhotic patients and the resources for their management.

Introduction & Objectives: Liver cirrhosis is a major cause of mortality worldwide. Adequate diagnosis and treatment of decompensating events requires of both medical skills and updated technical resources. The objectives of this study were to search the demographic profile of hospitalized cirrhotic patients in a group of Latin American hospitals and the availability of expertise/facilities for the diagnosis and therapy of decompensation episodes.

Acute pancreatitis in Chile: A multicenter study on epidemiology, etiology and clinical outcome. Retrospective analysis of clinical files.

Background: Epidemiology of acute pancreatitis (AP) is variable in different geographical regions.

Objectives: To compare etiology and severity of AP to published data from South America and the rest of world, study impact of demographical factors and treatment on its outcome in Chilean hospitals.

Methods: Multicenter observational study.

Th17 response and autophagy--main pathways implicated in the development of inflammatory bowel disease by genome-wide association studies.

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is an entity that mainly includes ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn´s disease (CD). Improved health care, diet changes, and higher industrialization are associated with an increase in IBD prevalence. This supports the central role of environmental factors in the pathology of this disease.

High prevalence of virulence-associated genotypes in Helicobacter pylori clinical isolates in the Region del Maule, Chile.

The prevalence of Helicobacter pylori infection and the gastric cancer mortality rate in Chile are remarkably high. This study identified some virulence-associated genes in 78 H. pylori clinical isolates from dyspeptic patients from the Region del Maule, which is the region with the higher gastric cancer mortality rate in the country.