The safety of same-day endoscopy and percutaneous liver biopsy.

Background And Aims: The aim of this study was to review our experience with same-day endoscopy (SDE) plus percutaneous liver biopsy (PLB) and to evaluate its safety compared to PLB alone.

Methods: We retrospectively examined records of all patients who underwent PLB between January 2003 and September 2009 and identified those who underwent SDE and matched these patients to those undergoing PLB alone. Serious adverse events (SAEs) were analyzed using our endoscopic database (EndoPro, Pentax) and were divided into those occurring immediately post-procedure and those occurring after discharge.

Predicting and preventing acute drug-induced liver injury: what's new in 2010?

Importance Of The Field: The field of drug-induced liver injury (DILI) continues to expand in terms of global registries and with new agents added every year. Given the need to improve on our current methods of preclinical testing and monitoring for DILI during both clinical trials and in the post-approval setting, there is increasing research aimed at better understanding why injury occurs and who is most susceptible. To this end, the active pursuit of biomarkers that will predict injury prior to its occurrence and genetic testing that can identify individuals at risk of DILI continue to be at the forefront.

Drug-induced liver injury: what was new in 2008?

Background: Given the number of publications appearing annually regarding drug-induced liver injury (DILI), there remains a need to concisely summarize each year's new crop of case series and reports as well as the advances in mechanisms of liver injury and in the field of pharmacogenomics relating to DILI.

Objective: To present an up-to-date review of the past year's most important clinical studies and reports of DILI, placing them into context of previous publications.

Methods: A Medline search was conducted of all manuscripts appearing in the fields "hepatotoxicity" and "drug-induced liver injury" during the calendar year 2008.

Constipation heralding neuroborreliosis: an atypical tale of 2 patients.

This is a report of 2 patients with Lyme disease who initially presented with severe constipation, which progressed to ascending muscular weakness resembling acute idiopathic polyneuritis, with neuropsychiatric symptoms, severe urinary retention, and hyponatremia. These symptoms resolved following proper antibiotic therapy.