The role of gut microbiota in clinical complications, disease severity, and treatment response in severe alcoholic hepatitis.

Background: Dysbiotic gut bacteria engage in the development and progression of severe alcoholic hepatitis (SAH). We aimed to characterize bacterial communities associated with clinical events (CE), identify significant bacteria linked to CE, and define bacterial relationships associated with specific CE and outcomes at baseline and after treatment in SAH.

Methods: We performed 16-s rRNA sequencing on stool samples (n=38) collected at admission and the last follow-up within 90 days in SAH patients (n=26; 12 corticosteroids; 14 granulocyte colony-stimulating factor, [G-CSF]).

Transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt in cirrhosis: An exhaustive critical update.

More than five decades after it was originally conceptualized as rescue therapy for patients with intractable variceal bleeding, the transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS) procedure continues to remain a focus of intense clinical and biomedical research. By the impressive reduction in portal pressure achieved by this intervention, coupled with its minimally invasive nature, TIPS has gained increasing acceptance in the treatment of complications of portal hypertension. The early years of TIPS were plagued by poor long-term patency of the stents and increased incidence of hepatic encephalopathy.

One disease, many faces-typical and atypical presentations of SARS-CoV-2 infection-related COVID-19 disease.

Since the appearance of the novel coronavirus (severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronavirus-2) and related coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in China in December 2019, a very high number of small and large patient series have been published in literature from around the world. Even though the classical presentation of COVID-19 is one with respiratory symptoms with or without pneumonia that can be self-limiting or evolve into severe respiratory distress syndrome with multiple organ failure, and secondary bacterial sepsis, a large body of evidence suggests a plethora of other types of clinical presentation. In this exhaustive review, we reviewed all of the published literature on COVID-19 to identify different types of clinical presentations affecting various organ systems, to provide an in-depth analysis that may prove useful for clinicians and health-workers on the frontline, battling the severe pandemic.