[Adefovir dipivoxil compassionate use program in Spain: efficacy and resistance analysis].

Background And Objective: The extended treatment with lamivudine in patients with chronic hepatitis B is associated with the emergence of resistances. Patients with resistance to lamivudine show a loss of biochemical and virological responses and a higher progression of their liver disease. Adefovir dipivoxil, an analogue of the nucleotides, is effective for the treatment of patients with resistance to lamivudine.

Peginterferon-alfa2a plus ribavirin for 48 versus 72 weeks in patients with detectable hepatitis C virus RNA at week 4 of treatment.

Background & Aims: Patients with chronic hepatitis C who do not respond rapidly to therapy have a low chance of developing a sustained virologic response (SVR) when treated for 48 weeks. This study investigated whether treatment for 72 weeks increases the rate of SVR in patients with detectable hepatitis C virus (HCV)-RNA levels at week 4 of treatment.

Methods: A total of 510 treatment-naive patients were treated with peginterferon-alfa2a (180 microg/wk) plus ribavirin (800 mg/day).

MR quantification of hepatic iron concentration.

Purpose: To evaluate the accuracy of magnetic resonance (MR) imaging in the quantification of hepatic iron concentration.

Materials And Methods: Between April 1999 and June 2001, 112 patients were recruited prospectively. All had undergone liver biopsy and hepatic iron concentration quantification with spectrophotometry, followed by MR imaging.

Portal hypertension in Williams syndrome: report of two patients.

Williams or Williams-Beuren syndrome (WBS) is a developmental disorder with multisystemic manifestations characterized by distinctive facial features, mental disability with unique cognitive and personality profiles, vascular stenoses, growth retardation, and occasional infantile hypercalcemia, caused by haploinsufficiency for genes deleted in chromosome band 7q11.23. However, with the exception of arterial stenoses caused by haploinsufficiency for the elastin gene (ELN), no specific implication of any other gene in the phenotype has been established.