Antiviral treatment of HCV carriers with persistently normal ALT levels.

Approximately 30% of patients with chronic HCV infection show persistently normal alanine aminotransferase levels (PNAL). The prevalence of HCV carriers with normal liver seems to be very low (less than 15-20%). Liver disease is usually minimal/mild and fibrosis is generally absent or minimal, although the association of normal alanine aminotransferase (ALT) with cirrhosis or with liver cancer has been reported.

Hepatic venous pressure gradient does not correlate with the presence and the severity of portal hypertensive gastropathy in patients with liver cirrhosis.

Background And Aims: To evaluate whether the hepatic venous pressure gradient (HVPG) differs between cirrhotic patients with severe portal hypertensive gastropathy (PHG) and those with mild or absent PHG.

Methods: 59 cirrhotic patients with portal hypertension underwent hepatic vein catheterisation. 44 patients (76%) had PHG (16 mild and 28 severe).

Hospital prevalence of asymptomatic primary biliary cirrhosis: 4-year study based on analysis of 4468 consecutive in-patients.

To assess the hospital prevalence of asymptomatic primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC), routine determination of serum alkaline phosphatase (AP), liver function tests (albumin, bilirubin, prothrombin time) and serum liver biochemistry (aminotransferases, gamma-glutamyltranspeptidase) were performed in 4468 consecutive in-patients (2332 men, 2136 women; mean age 57 years, range 16-94 years) admitted to our medical department from April 1991 to May 1995. In patients with an increase of serum AP levels, antimitochondrial antibody (AMA) testing, ultrasonography or CT scan, HIDA biliary scintiscan, bone scintiscan and endoscopic retrograde cholangio-pancreatography (ERCP) were performed to exclude any disorders other than PBC. Fourteen out of the 4468 patients (0.