Establishing a perioperative medicine for older people undergoing surgery service for general surgical patients at a district general hospital.

Introduction: There is growing recognition of the need for perioperative medicine services for older surgical patients. Comprehensive geriatric assessment and optimisation methodology has been successfully used to improve perioperative outcomes at tertiary centres. This paper describes translation of an established model of geriatrician-led perioperative care to a district general hospital (DGH) setting.

[Long-term viral response to interferon alpha 2b plus ribavirin in chronic hepatitis C patients during standard therapy].

Unlabelled: The aim of study was to evaluate the long-term effect of combination treatment with interferon alpha 2b and ribavirin in patients with chronic hepatitis C during standard therapy.

Material: 210 chronic HCV infected patients (M 134, F 76, mean age 43 +/- 12,3) were treated with interferon alpha 2b TIW and ribavirin (1,0--1,2 g/d) for 48 weeks. None of the patients was infected with HBV or HIV.

[Incidence of haemolytic anaemia during combination therapy of chronic hepatitis C with interferon alpha-2b and ribavirin].

Objective: Analysis of incidence of haemolytic anaemia during INF-alpha + ribavirin (RBV) treatment of chronic hepatitis C (CHC).

Material And Methods: 95 patients (M=64, F=31, mean age: 42.5 +/- 11.

A multi-center open study to determine the effect of lamivudine on HBV DNA clearance and to assess the safety of the regimen in patients with chronic hepatitis B infection.

Background: Patients with on-going HBV viral replication often present with clinical features of active chronic hepatitis. Until the recent introduction of nucleoside analogues, interferon-alpha was the only approved drug for these patients. One of the former drugs, lamivudine, has been shown in clinical trials in the US and Asia to effectively inhibit the viral polymerase of HBV.