NEPHROTIC SYNDROME IS A WELL KNOWN PRESENTATION OF KIDNEY DISEASE WITH A TRIAD of clinical features namely oedema, substantial proteinuria (> 3.5 g/24 hours) and hypoalbuminaemia (< 30 g/L). It is often associated with hyperlipidaemia, thromboembolism and an increased risk of infection.
Advanced cirrhosis is frequently associated with renal dysfunction. Hepatorenal syndrome (HRS) is characterized by the occurrence of kidney injury in cirrhotic patients in the absence of other identifiable causes. HRS is classified in 2 different types. Type 1 is characterized by acute renal failure and rapid functional deterioration of other organs, usually related to a precipitating event.…
Renal failure in cirrhotic patients is a very severe condition. Hepatorenal syndrome has the worst prognosis among all causes of kidney failure in such patients. Hepatorenal syndrome is diagnosed especially in cirrhotic patients with ascites who develop loss renal function, despite diuretic suspension and volume expansion with albumin and for whom other causes of kidney injury have been exclude…
The composition of gut microflora and its metabolic activity are closely correlated with the host immune system, and the changes in the biometric of the microbiome lead to inflammatory diseases like inflammatory bowel disease. The supplementation of probiotics and synbiotic could indeed manipulate the microflora, which can be an alternative therapy for ulcerative colitis, and Crohn’s disease.
Radiation colitis, an insidious, progressive disease of increasing frequency, develops 6 mo to 5 years after regional radiotherapy for malignancy, owing to the deleterious effects of the latter on the colon and the small intestine. When dealing with radiation colitis and its complications, the most conservative modality should be employed because the areas of intestinal injury do not tend to h…
Unequivocal diagnosis with avoidance of falsepositive results is very relevant in patients with liver disease in whom an imaging technique detects a nodule that raises the potential emergence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Although biopsy confirmation is standard in most cancers, several studies have shown that reliable HCC diagnosis may be established by imaging techniques in patients wit…
The aim of the present study was to investigate the role of interleukin (IL)-21 in chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. IL-21 stimulates T and B cell responses and plays a role in the control of chronic viral infections. Serum IL-21 levels were measured by enzyme immunoassay in 109 patients with chronic HBV infection at various clinical stages, as well as in 19 healthy controls (HCs).
In this case-control study, 366 Chinese HBV-infected patients were recruited and divided into hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC; n = 94) and non-HCC (n = 272) groups at The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, from April 2009 to December 2012. In the non-HCC group, the patients were classified into three clinical subsets, 76 patients had chronic hepatitis B, 101 were HBV carriers a…
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) generally causes self-limiting infection in immunocompetent adults, but establishes chronic infection in some adults and in most maternally infected infants. Factors determining clearance versus persistence are not fully understood. Hydrodynamic injection (HDI) of HBV replicon plasmid via tail vein generally results in quick clearance in immunocompetent adult mice. Here,…