Management for severe Crohn's disease: a lifetime cost-utility analysis.

Objectives: Infliximab is a costly therapy for active Crohn's disease resistant to corticosteroids and immunosuppressive medication. The purpose of this study was to examine whether a treatment including infliximab (episodic re-infusions for relapse or maintenance therapy every 8 weeks) was relevant compared with conventional management (surgery and medical treatment without infliximab) for nonfistulizing resistant Crohn's disease.

Methods: We performed a life-time cost-utility analysis with an analytic Markov decision model from the perspective of the third-party payer system.

[Chronic active ulcerative colitis. Efficacy of intravenous followed by oral cyclosporine combined with azathioprine].

Objective: To know whether the therapeutic protocol applied in the case of severe acute ulcerative colitis (UC) associating ciclosporine and azathioprine was also effective in the case of moderate chronic active ulcerative colitis (UC).

Subjects And Methods: in this retrospective study 10 patients (31-65 years, 6 distal colitis, 1 left colitis, 3 pancolitis) moderately active and corticosteroid-resistant or dependent were included. Patients received ciclosporine intraveinously (4 mg/kg/d) and were evaluated 10 days later.

Is scintigraphic double-track appearance a sign of severe acute episodes of ulcerative colitis?

Aim: In comparison to endoscopy, clinical and biological criteria are less predictive of severity in attacks of ulcerative colitis (UC). Our aim was to assess the value of the double-track scintigraphic appearance in the assessment of the severity of acute UC by comparing it to endoscopic criteria.

Patients And Methods: We reviewed medical records of 52 patients hospitalized for an acute attack of UC, who had undergone within 48 hours of presentation both a technetium 99m hexamethyl propylene amine oxime (99mTc-HMPAO) granulocyte scintigraphy and endoscopic examination (colonoscopy: n=20; rectosigmoidoscopy: n=32).

Exogenous oestrogen as an alternative to food allergy in the aetiology of angioneurotic oedema.

Although frequently reported as an aetiology for chronic angioneurotic oedema or urticaria, food allergy is often a diagnosis proposed in the absence of more convincing evidence, as illustrated by the disappointing results of eviction regimens. We report a series of women with an initial diagnosis of food allergy, but in whom the role of oral contraceptives was subsequently demonstrated. Detailed medical history was obtained from 26 young women presenting with chronic angioneurotic oedema or urticaria initially attributed to food allergy, but in whom C1-esterase inhibitor (C1 INH) deficiency was demonstrated.

Lhermitte sign and urinary retention: atypical presentation of oxaliplatin neurotoxicity in four patients.

Background: Regimens combining oxaliplatin with fluorouracil and folinic acid are standard therapeutic options for patients with metastatic colorectal carcinoma. Oxaliplatin has a good safety profile, although it is responsible for dose-limiting neurotoxicity typically consisting of two distinct clusters of symptoms. Cold-induced distal paresthesiae occur during or shortly after infusion in most patients and are usually transient and mild.

Butyrate strongly inhibits in vitro stimulated release of cytokines in blood.

We studied the in vitro effects of butyrate on the stimulated release of proinflammatory cytokines and cytokines involved in the Th-1/Th-2 balance using the whole-blood model in nine healthy humans. Cytokines were measured without (control) and after stimulation by bacterial lipopolysaccharides (LPS) and phytohemagglutinin (PHA) alone or with addition of butyrate at six different concentrations (0.0625, 0.