Markers of cardiac injury in patients with liver cirrhosis.

Liver cirrhosis is an increasing public health problem and a major cause of morbidity and mortality. Accordingly, cirrhotic cardiomyopathy, a frequently underdiagnosed condition, is becoming a growing health problem. In the last 20 years, cardioselective biomarkers have been investigated for their diagnostic and prognostic properties for numerous conditions.

Correlation of ex vivo cytokine secretion profiles with scoring indices in ulcerative colitis.

Background: In ulcerative colitis, the complexity of mucosal cytokine secretion profiles and how they correlate with endoscopic and clinical scores is still unclear.

Methods: In this study, we collected fresh biopsies from UC patients to investigate which cytokines are produced in ex vivo culture conditions, a platform increasingly used for testing of novel drugs. Then, we correlated cytokine production with several scoring indices commonly used to assess the severity of the disease.

Changes in pontine and preBötzinger/Bötzinger complex neuronal activity during remifentanil-induced respiratory depression in decerebrate dogs.

studies using selective, localized opioid antagonist injections or localized opioid receptor deletion have identified that systemic opioids dose-dependently depress respiratory output through effects in multiple respiratory-related brainstem areas. With approval of the subcommittee on animal studies of the Zablocki VA Medical Center, experiments were performed in 53 decerebrate, vagotomized, mechanically ventilated dogs of either sex during isocapnic hyperoxia. We performed single neuron recordings in the Pontine Respiratory Group (PRG, = 432) and preBötzinger/Bötzinger complex region (preBötC/BötC, = 213) before and during intravenous remifentanil infusion (0.

Use of biochemical parameters for non-invasive screening of oesophageal varices in comparison to elastography-based approach in patients with compensated advanced chronic liver disease.

Introduction: Oesophageal varices are routinely diagnosed by esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD), and their bleeding has high mortality. We aimed to evaluate diagnostic performance of biochemical tests in comparison to elastography-based approaches, as non-invasive alternatives to EGD, for ruling-out high risk oesophageal varices (HRV).

Material And Methods: Retrospective analysis of patients (N = 861) who underwent liver stiffness measurement (LSM) by transient elastography (TE) in a single centre over 5-year period, with available results of EGD (within 3 months from LSM).

Point Shear Wave Elastography by ElastPQ for Fibrosis Screening in Patients with NAFLD: A Prospective, Multicenter Comparison to Vibration-Controlled Elastography.

Background: Since nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has become the leading cause of liver disease in the Western world, clinicians need reliable noninvasive tools for the identification of NAFLD-associated fibrosis. Limited evidence on the performance of the novel shear wave elastography technique Elast-PQ (EPQ) in NAFLD is available.

Method: In this prospective, European multinational study we assessed the diagnostic accuracy of EPQ using vibration-controlled transient elastography (VCTE) as a reference standard.