Incidence and predictors of bleeding or thrombosis after polypectomy in patients receiving and not receiving anticoagulation therapy.

Background And Aims: To assess the effect of warfarin anticoagulation therapy (AC) on the incidence of colon bleeding after elective colonoscopy with polypectomy and to identify independent predictors of post-polypectomy colon bleeding.

Methods: This was a retrospective cohort analysis. Patients interrupting warfarin AC therapy for polypectomy (AC group) were matched on age (+/- 3 years) with up to two patients who underwent polypectomy but were not receiving AC (non-AC group).

Prevalence and determinants of elevated plasma norepinephrine concentration in compensated cirrhosis.

Objectives: Elevation of plasma norepinephrine concentration in patients with cirrhosis and ascites is attributed to sympathetic activation due to arterial underfilling. Plasma norepinephrine should thus be normal in patients without sodium retention. We examined the prevalence and determinants of elevated plasma norepinephrine concentration in compensated cirrhosis.

Sodium retention does not occur at a critical threshold of liver function in alcoholic cirrhosis.

Sodium retention is triggered in rats with experimental liver injury at a critical threshold of liver function. We compared liver function and sodium retention in serially studied patients with alcoholic cirrhosis to determine whether a similar threshold exists in human beings. Antipyrine, caffeine, and cholic acid clearance were measured in 35 men with alcoholic liver disease.

Arterial underfilling does not cause sodium retention in cirrhosis.

Purpose: To test the peripheral arterial vasodilation hypothesis of sodium retention in cirrhosis. This states that sodium retention is triggered by arterial underfilling and predicts that development of sodium retention will be associated with significant and related declines in indices of arterial filling that reverse when sodium retention resolves.

Design: Longitudinal evaluation of a cohort of patients with alcoholic liver disease.