Publications by authors named "Hristo Valkov"
Article Synopsis
- Severe COVID-19 cases are often driven by an excessive immune response, known as a cytokine storm, leading to uncontrolled inflammation.
- Understanding immune dysregulation is crucial for developing targeted therapies to manage COVID-19 effectively.
- This review examines various immunomodulatory treatments, including corticosteroids, antiviral drugs, and monoclonal antibodies, aimed at balancing immune response to improve patient outcomes.
Background: In chronic diarrhea patients, massive over-reporting symptom-based criteria for functional bowel disorders are pitfalls. There is currently no objective biomarker that may provide a correct correlation with the severity of chronic diarrhea. To clarify the role of fibroblast growth factor-19 (FGF-19) as a biomarker of objective measurements of the severity of diarrhea in comparison with a patientreported outcome, based on the Bristol Stool Form (BSF) Scale.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Bile acid malabsorption is common in microscopic colitis, irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhea, and inflammatory bowel disease. We investigated the diagnostic accuracy of 7-alfa-hydroxy-4-cholesten-3-one and compared it with fibroblast growth factor-19 as biomarkers for bile acid malabsorption.
Methods: We enrolled consecutively 109 chronic diarrhea patients with standard laboratory tests, fecal calprotectin, and endoscopy separated into six groups: n = 30 with active inflammatory bowel disease, n = 21 with inflammatory bowel disease in remission reporting >3 bowel movements per day, n = 21 with inflammatory bowel disease after surgery, n = 23 with irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhea, n = 14 with microscopic colitis and 11 healthy subjects (controls).
Aims: We aimed to evaluate the prevalence of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), functional dyspepsia (FD), and their overlap syndrome (OS) in the Bulgarian population and to assess the risk factors associated with these disorders.
Methods: We sent an internet-based survey to Bulgarian adults. The survey collected data on socio- demographic, behavioral and lifestyle characteristics, and diagnostic questions following the Rome IV criteria to assess IBS, FD and their overlap occurrence.