Carvedilol vs. propranolol for the prevention of decompensation and mortality in patients with compensated and decompensated cirrhosis.

Background And Aims: Data on the effectiveness of classical non-selective beta-blockers (cNSBB, i.e., propranolol and nadolol) versus carvedilol in patients with cirrhosis are scarce.

Steerable Delivery Sheath for Left Atrial Appendage Closure in Patients With Severely Enlarged Left Atria.

Background: Enlarged left atrium (LA) is frequently identified in patients who undergo left atrial appendage closure (LAAC) and negatively affects the device's final position and intervention results. Steerable delivery sheath (SDS) could represent an option to overcome these difficulties. We aimed to assess the feasibility of SDS-assisted procedures and compare their efficacy to the standard sheath strategy.

HIV infection is associated with a less aggressive phenotype of inflammatory bowel disease. A multicenter study of the ENEIDA registry.

Background: The coexistence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is uncommon. Data on the impact of HIV on IBD course and its management is scarce.

Aim: To describe the IBD phenotype, therapeutic requirements and prevalence of opportunistic infections (OI) in IBD patients with a coexistent HIV infection.

The Usefulness of Intraepithelial Lymphocyte Immunophenotype Testing for the Diagnosis of Coeliac Disease in Clinical Practice.

Background: The diagnosis of coeliac disease (CD) in adults is based on clinical, serological and histological criteria. The inappropriate performance of intestinal biopsies, non-specificity of mild histological lesions and initiation of a gluten-free diet (GFD) before biopsy may hamper the diagnosis. In these situations, determining the intraepithelial lymphogram of the duodenum by flow cytometry (IEL-FC) can be helpful.

Long-term risk of delayed postoperative Crohn's disease recurrence in patients with no or mild endoscopic recurrence at first assessment.

Background: Early endoscopic evaluation is recommended for assessment of postoperative recurrence (POR) of Crohn's disease (CD) but no further monitoring recommendations are available.

Aim: To evaluate the long-term outcome of patients without endoscopic POR at first endoscopic assessment.

Methods: Retrospective four-centre study including consecutive CD patients with ileocolonic resection (ICR) without endoscopic POR (Rutgeerts score i0-i1) at first endoscopic assessment performed within 18 months from ICR.

Effectiveness and safety of a third-line rescue treatment for acute severe ulcerative colitis refractory to infliximab or ciclosporin (REASUC study).

Background: The advent of new therapeutic agents and the improvement of supporting care might change the management of acute severe ulcerative colitis (ASUC) and avoid colectomy.

Aims: To evaluate the colectomy-free survival and safety of a third-line treatment in patients with ASUC refractory to intravenous steroids and who failed either infliximab or ciclosporin.

Methods: Multicentre retrospective cohort study of patients with ASUC refractory to intravenous steroids who had failed infliximab or ciclosporin and received a third-line treatment during the same hospitalisation.

Incidence of herpes zoster in patients with inflammatory bowel disease.

Background: Herpes zoster (HZ) is a prevalent disease caused by the reactivation of the varicella-zoster virus (VZV) and associated with chronic morbidity, particularly with post-herpetic neuralgia (PHN). Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) has been associated with an increased risk of HZ, mainly when immunosuppressive treatment (IMT) is used. However, studies assessing the risk of HZ in IBD are scarce.

Impact of immunosuppressants on SARS-CoV-2 infection in elderly patients with inflammatory bowel disease.

Background: Older age has been reported as a risk factor for severe SARS-CoV-2 disease (COVID-19). The impact of immunosuppressants (IMS) on COVID-19 is still under debate.

Aim: To describe the incidence and severity of COVID-19 in elderly patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in relation to the use of IMS.

Silicone key device for maxilla orientation and occlusal plane recording in a digital workflow.

This article describes a technique for recording the maxilla's orientation in esthetically driven oral rehabilitation and transferring its position by using computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing (CAD-CAM) technology. The protocol uses a Fox plane and a bubble level to orient an addition silicone key of the maxilla parallel to the occlusal reference plane. The silicone reference key was scanned, superimposed over the maxilla intraoral standard tessellation language (STL) file, and adequately oriented in a CAD software program.

Efficacy and safety of surgical treatment of cluster headache.

Background And Objectives: Cluster headache (CR) is the most severe human headache and is chronic in 10%-20% of patients, and 10% can become refractory to all effective drugs. In this scenario, surgical procedures are indicated: radiofrequencies of the sphenopalatine ganglion ipsilateral to pain (RF-SPG), bilateral stimulation of the occipital nerves (NOM-S) and deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the ipsilateral posterior hypothalamus. The efficacy and safety of each of these procedures has been specifically analyzed, but the progress of a series of patients following this surgical route in order of aggressiveness has not been described.

[Left atrial appendage occlusion in elderly].

Left atrial appendage occlusion (LAAO) is an alternative option to oral anticoagulation therapy in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation. According to French regulations, this procedure is currently reserved for patients with formal contraindications to VKA and direct thrombin inhibitors. LAAO procedures reduce ischemic and stroke risks compared to no treatment and also reduce bleeding events compared to VKA therapy in eligible patients.

Introducing automation to the molecular diagnosis of Trypanosoma cruzi infection: A comparative study of sample treatments, DNA extraction methods and real-time PCR assays.

Background: Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has become a useful tool for the diagnosis of Trypanosoma cruzi infection. The development of automated DNA extraction methodologies and PCR systems is an important step toward the standardization of protocols in routine diagnosis. To date, there are only two commercially available Real-Time PCR assays for the routine laboratory detection of T.

Mutation Spectrum in the CACNA1A Gene in 49 Patients with Episodic Ataxia.

Episodic ataxia is an autosomal dominant ion channel disorder characterized by episodes of imbalance and incoordination. The disease is genetically heterogeneous and is classified as episodic ataxia type 2 (EA2) when it is caused by a mutation in the CACNA1A gene, encoding the α subunit of the P/Q-type voltage-gated calcium channel Ca2.1.

Visual hallucinations in patients with acute stroke: a prospective exploratory study.

Background And Purpose: The incidence, underlying physiopathology, features and association with lesion topography of visual hallucinations in acute stroke have scarcely been investigated.

Methods: Patients with a diagnosis of acute stroke (ischaemic or haemorrhagic) in any vascular territory, admitted within 24 h after the onset of symptoms, were consecutively included in the study. Patients with a previous history of psychosis or cognitive impairment were excluded.

[Changes introduced into the recent International Classification of Headache Disorders: ICHD-III beta classification].

Introduction: The International Headache Society (IHS) has published the third edition of the International Classification of Headache Disorders (ICHD-III beta), the most commonly used guide to diagnosing headaches in the world.

Aims: To review the recent additions to the guide, to explain the new entities that appear in it and to compare the conditions that have had their criteria further clarified against the criteria in the previous edition.

Development: We have recorded a large number of clarifications in the criteria in practically all the headaches and neuralgias in the classification, but the conditions that have undergone the most significant clarifications are chronic migraine, primary headache associated with sexual activity, short-lasting unilateral neuralgiform headache attacks, new daily persistent headache, medication-overuse headache, syndrome of transient headache and neurological deficits with cerebrospinal fluid lymphocytosis.

Efficient mapping of genomic sequences to optimize multiple pairwise alignment in hybrid cluster platforms.

Multiple sequence alignment (MSA), used in biocomputing to study similarities between different genomic sequences, is known to require important memory and computation resources. Nowadays, researchers are aligning thousands of these sequences, creating new challenges in order to solve the problem using the available resources efficiently. Determining the efficient amount of resources to allocate is important to avoid waste of them, thus reducing the economical costs required in running for example a specific cloud instance.

New subtype of spinocerebellar ataxia with altered vertical eye movements mapping to chromosome 1p32.

Importance: To provide clinical and genetic diagnoses for patients' conditions, it is important to identify and characterize the different subtypes of spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA).

Objective: To clinically and genetically characterize a Spanish kindred with pure SCA presenting with altered vertical eye movements. DESIGN Family study of ambulatory patients.