May plasma cholesterol level be considered a neoplastic marker in liver disease from cirrhosis to hepatocellular carcinoma?

Background: Although the role of cholesterol in tumourigenesis is unclear, it is used by the tumoural cells for biosynthetic processes and for steroid synthesis.

Aim: To accertain whether plasma cholesterol levels might be a reliable neoplastic marker of a developing hepatocellular carcinoma in patients with liver cirrhosis.

Patients: Plasma cholesterol has been studied in 287 liver cirrhosis patients without hepatocellular carcinoma and in 132 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma.

Adult celiac disease and primary sclerosing cholangitis: two case reports.

The association of primary sclerosing cholangitis and celiac disease is uncommon. Herein, we report on 2 different cases which developed this association. Case 1 was a 59 year-old female who firstly complained of symptoms of cholestasis.

Mesenteric vein thrombosis: a rare cause of abdominal pain in cirrhotic patients--two case reports.

Mesenteric vein thrombosis is a rare disorder which can develop rapidly with intestinal infarction or subacutely with abdominal pain due to intestinal ischemia. Despite the availability of modern diagnostic tools, which allow an early diagnosis in most cases, the mortality from this disease has not significantly diminished over the years. The problem is that the syndrome is rare and unusual and the clinical presentation is usually vague or confusing.

Impairment in dating and retrieving remote events in patients with early Parkinson's disease.

Remote memory has been studied in a group of 25 non-demented patients with Parkinson's disease and their performance has been compared with that of 22 healthy control subjects. Only patients who scored > or = 27 on the mini mental state examination and with no anticholinergic treatment were included in the sample. A remote memory questionnaire was given, to evaluate memory for public events that occurred from 1966 to 1990.