The epidemiology and clinical characteristics of patients with newly diagnosed alcohol-related liver disease: results from population-based surveillance.

Goals: We describe the epidemiology of outpatients newly diagnosed with chronic alcoholic liver disease and describe predictors of cirrhosis and referral for specialty care.

Background: Alcohol is a major cause of liver disease in the United States. Most previous work has described hospitalized patients.

Measurement of serum D-arabinitol/creatinine ratios for initial diagnosis and for predicting outcome in an unselected, population-based sample of patients with Candida fungemia.

D-Arabinitol (DA) is a useful diagnostic marker for candidiasis in patients with neutropenia and other high-risk groups, but its use in unselected patients with a broad range of underlying diseases and conditions has not been studied. We used an automated enzymatic fluorometric assay to measure serum DA/creatinine ratios (DA/cr's) in 30 healthy adults, 100 hospitalized controls without Candida fungemia, and 83 patients from a study of all Candida fungemias in Connecticut between October 1998 and September 1999. Sixty-three of 83 (76%) fungemic patients and 11 of 100 (11%) nonfungemic controls had serum DA/cr's >or=3.

Incidence of bloodstream infections due to Candida species and in vitro susceptibilities of isolates collected from 1998 to 2000 in a population-based active surveillance program.

To determine the incidence of Candida bloodstream infections (BSI) and antifungal drug resistance, population-based active laboratory surveillance was conducted from October 1998 through September 2000 in two areas of the United States (Baltimore, Md., and the state of Connecticut; combined population, 4.7 million).