Clinical characteristics and outcome of patients with cirrhosis and refractory ascites.

Background: In patients with cirrhosis, refractory ascites is associated with a poor prognosis and is an indication for liver transplantation. However, factors that determine prognosis remain unclear.

Aims: To investigate the predictive factors of prognosis in patients with refractory ascites.

[Stiff limb syndrome associated with Hashimoto's encephalopathy: improvement after corticotherapy].

Stiff limb syndrome is a recently described variant of stiff man syndrome and is characterized by limb stiffness and spasms. Unlike stiff man syndrome, stiff limb syndrome is rarely associated with anti GAD antibodies, poorly improves after symptomatic treatment, and has a relapsing and remitting course. Both stiff man and stiff limb syndromes are frequently associated with auto-immune diseases.

Morbidity induced by Schistosoma haematobium infections, as assessed by ultrasound before and after treatment with praziquantel, in a recently expanded focus (Senegal River basin).

Seven years after the completion of two dams in the Senegal River basin, 203 individuals from four villages around Podor in the middle valley, where Schistosoma haematobium infections were present, were examined in June 1995. In December 1995 a single dose of praziquantel (40 mg/kg) was given to each of these subjects, who were re-examined in April 1996. Clinical and parasitological signs of infection were investigated at both examinations, and ultrasonography was performed to check for lesions of the urinary tract induced by S.