Optimisation of tocilizumab therapy in giant cell arteritis. A multicentre real-life study of 471 patients.

Objectives: Tocilizumab (TCZ) is the only biologic therapy approved for giant cell arteritis (GCA). There is general agreement on the initial/maintenance dose, duration of TCZ therapy is not well established. In GiACTA trial, after one year on TCZ, most patients had GCA relapse after withdrawal.

Tocilizumab in visual involvement of giant cell arteritis: a multicenter study of 471 patients.

Background: Visual involvement is the most feared complication of giant cell arteritis (GCA). Information on the efficacy of tocilizumab (TCZ) for this complication is scarce and controversial.

Objective: We assessed a wide series of GCA treated with TCZ, to evaluate its role in the prevention of new visual complications and its efficacy when this manifestation was already present before the initiation of TCZ.

Do all antiphospholipid antibodies confer the same risk for major organ involvement in systemic lupus erythematosus patients?

Objectives: We aimed to investigate the association between the different antiphospholipid antibodies (aPL) and both systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) manifestations.

Methods: Patients from the RELESSER registry, a Spanish retrospective, cross-sectional, forty-five hospital registry of adult SLE patients, were included.

Results: Out of a total of 3,658 SLE patients, 1372 were aPL positive (555 of them fulfilled criteria for APS).

Antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) implies a more severe disease with more damage accrual and higher mortality.

Introduction: Antiphospholipid antibodies (aPL) have been associated with organ damage and certain features in systemic lupus erythematosus(SLE) patients. Our aim was to investigate the differences between SLE patients according to the presence of aPL and/or clinical antiphospholipid syndrome (APS).

Materials And Methods: Patients from the RELESSER-T registry were included.

Tocilizumab in giant cell arteritis: differences between the GiACTA trial and a multicentre series of patients from the clinical practice.

Objectives: A potential point of concern among clinicians is whether results derived from the clinical trials can be reasonably applied or generalised to a definable group of patients seen in real world. It can be the case of the GiACTA study that is a phase III randomised controlled trial of tocilizumab (TCZ) in giant cell arteritis (GCA). To address this question, we compared the clinical features and the responses to TCZ from the GiACTA trial patients with those from a series of GCA seen in the daily clinical practice.

High quality of life, treatment tolerability, safety and efficacy in HIV patients switching from triple therapy to lopinavir/ritonavir monotherapy: A randomized clinical trial.

Trial Design: The QoLKAMON study evaluated quality of life, efficacy and treatment safety in HIV patients receiving lopinavir/ritonavir in monotherapy (MT) versus continuing combined antiretroviral triple treatment with a boosted protease inhibitor (TT).

Methods: This was a 24-week, open-label, multicentre study in virologically-suppressed HIV-infected participants (N = 225) with a 2:1 randomization: 146 patients who switched to MT were compared with 79 patients who remained on a TT regimen. The primary endpoint was change in patient-reported outcomes in quality of life as measured by the MOS-HIV and EQ-5D questionnaires.

Efficacy and Safety of Therapy With Simeprevir and Sofosbuvir in Liver Transplant Recipients Infected by Hepatitis C Virus Genotype 4: Cohort Spanish Society of Liver Transplantation Cohort.

Background: Patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotype 4 infection are poorly represented in clinical trials of 2nd-generation direct-acting antivirals (DAAs), and more data are needed to help guide treatment decisions. We still have even fewer data concerning liver transplant patients. Simeprevir (SIM) and sofosbuvir (SOF) combination is useful to treat this genotype.

Characterization of Patients With Lupus Nephritis Included in a Large Cohort From the Spanish Society of Rheumatology Registry of Patients With Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (RELESSER).

The aim of the study was to profile those patients included in the RELESSER registry with histologically proven renal involvement in order to better understand the current state of lupus nephritis (LN) in Spain. RELESSER-TRANS is a multicenter cross-sectional registry with an analytical component. Information was collected from the medical records of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus who were followed at participating rheumatology units.

Benchmarking in Thoracic Surgery. Third Edition.

Introduction: Benchmarking entails continuous comparison of efficacy and quality among products and activities, with the primary objective of achieving excellence.

Objective: To analyze the results of benchmarking performed in 2013 on clinical practices undertaken in 2012 in 17 Spanish thoracic surgery units.

Methods: Study data were obtained from the basic minimum data set for hospitalization, registered in 2012.

Growth factor expression after lesion creation in the avascular zone of the meniscus: a quantitative PCR study in rabbits.

Purpose: To define the variations in the expression of 5 growth factor genes in meniscal tissue after a lesion is created in the avascular zone of the medial meniscus of the rabbit.

Methods: A longitudinal lesion was created in the avascular zone of the anterior horn of the medial meniscus in 42 rabbits. Six animals were killed at 0, 1, 3, 7, 14, 21, and 120 days after lesion creation.

Curvilinear bodies in hydroxychloroquine-induced renal phospholipidosis resembling Fabry disease.

Inherited and acquired metabolic disorders are responsible for renal intracellular accumulation of phospholipids. Ultrastructural analysis revealing typical myeloid or zebra bodies was previously thought to be exclusive to Fabry disease. However, chloroquine/hydroxychloroquine toxicity can cause similar abnormalities.

[Nutrition and anaemias in critical illness].

Introduction: We made a clinical study, about nutrition in seriously ill patients, which includes a typical heterogeneous group of critical ill patients, with/without anaemia's, that have been admitted to Intensive Care Unit, ICU. It is difficult to individualize and to generalize the relative importance of all the factors that can contribute to these anaemia's in the admission to the Unit, including nutritional deficiencies, inflammatory alterations, the immune response to aggressions, inmunitary modifications and the complex relations existing between these clinic processes.

Objective: Indirect valuation of the nutritional situation and anaemia's, in a typical heterogeneous group of critical ill patients.

Validity of the bath ankylosing spondylitis disease activity index for the evaluation of disease activity in axial psoriatic arthritis.

Objective: To assess the validity of the Bath Ankylosing Spondylitis Disease Activity Index (BASDAI) for the evaluation and definition of disease activity of axial psoriatic arthritis (PsA).

Methods: Fifty-four peripheral PsA, 46 axial PsA, and 103 primary ankylosing spondylitis (AS) patients were assessed. Patients were classified as having axial PsA if they had grade 2 or higher unilateral sacroiliitis in the presence of spinal symptoms.

Evaluation of ankylosing spondylitis spinal mobility measurements in the assessment of spinal involvement in psoriatic arthritis.

Objective: To determine the clinical usefulness of spinal mobility measurements used for ankylosing spondylitis (AS) to assess spinal involvement in patients with psoriatic arthritis (PsA).

Methods: We assessed 100 patients with PsA and 103 patients with AS. Patients were classified as having axial PsA if they had grade 2 or higher unilateral sacroiliitis in the presence of spinal symptoms.

[Immunosuppressive treatment in patients starting peritoneal dialysis after functional arrest of kidney transplant. What to do?].

The growing number of kidney patients who have to restart dialysis after functional failure of a kidney transplant has brought to this context the general controversy on dialysis modality selection criteria. These should be applied from a longterm perspective, since each patient may benefit more from one treatment or another at different times in his clinical course. When the issue is analyzed from a general perspective, peritoneal dialysis and hemodialysis seem to provide similar results in renal transplant patients, although the available information is still insufficient.

[Bronchoscopy in children with foreign body aspiration].

Introduction And Objectives: Aspiration of foreign body presents a high incidence of mortality during the paediatric life period. Family suspect and detection of specific symptoms and signs determine the need of bronchoscopy. The objective of this study is to establish the clinical parameters that indicate foreign body in airway.

[Renal xenotransplant. Acute vascular rejection].

Introduction And Objectives: Organ transplant is nowadays a usual and succesful practice, although with limited application due to the lack of organs. Yearly thousands of patients get access to the waiting list and finally will death while they are waiting for an organ. In the U.

[Carcinoma of the anterior commissure].

Treatment of glottic carcinoma with anterior commissure involvement is under debate. Treatment spectrum includes surgery, open or endoscopic, and radiotherapy. Since similar results are reported in the literature, preferences depend on experience and skill of the person responsible for treatment.

Choroid plexus carcinoma: a rare condition and its therapeutic management.

Choroid plexus carcinomas are rare tumours, found chiefly during childhood. The commonest pattern of progression is via the neural axis. We present the case of a patient with unusual metastatic dissemination, affecting lungs and bones two years after diagnosis, and the approach adopted towards him.