0000000000007079
AUTHOR
A. Cartabellotta
Diet and Gallstones in Women of a Rural Town of Sicily
To test the possible association between dietary factors and gallstones, we performed a case-control study on the dietary habits of 71 women with gallstones in a rural area of Sicily (mean age 63.2 years) and compared these with 142 women who did not have gallstones (mean age 63.6 years) selected at random from the same general population. The dietary questionnaire, based on data collected over 7 days, was carefully compiled by two dieticians specially trained for the study. The daily calorie intake was higher in the women with gallstones ( p= 0.006) and was equally distributed between fats, carbohydrates and proteins. The intakes of unsaturated fats ( p= 0.03), unrefined sugars ( p= 0.01) …
Intravenous natural beta-interferon in white patients with chronic hepatitis C who are nonresponders to alpha-interferon.
Objectives: α-Interferons (α-IFN) have been shown to be effective in the treatment of chronic viral C hepatitis, but their efficacy remains unsatisfactory. Recently natural β-interferon (β-IFN) administered by intravenous infusion has been used successfully. Methods: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of intravenous β-IFN administration we treated 20 patients with histologically proven chronic hepatitis C who were nonresponders to at least two previous courses of α-IFN treatment. All patients received 6 million units (MU) of natural human fibroblast β-IFN by drip infusion, 6 times per wk for 8 wk and were followed up for 6 months after suspension of treatment. Results: Five patients (25%) …
Clinical evaluation of pancreatitis-associated protein as a serum marker of hepatocellular carcinoma: Comparison with α-fetoprotein
This study evaluated the significance of serum pancreatitis-associated protein (PAP) assay, as a marker of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), in comparison and combined with α-fetoprotein (AFP) assay. Sixty-five patients with HCC, 59 with liver cirrhosis (LC) and 68 asymptomatic controls (C) were studied. PAP and AFP values significantly increased from C to LC and HCC group (p < 0.0001). The area under receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curve for the two markers was not statistically different. At 100% specificity, ROC analysis gave a cut-off level for AFP of 166 IU/l with 40% sensitivity, and a cut-off level of 240 µg/l for PAP with 23% sensitivity. Diagnostic accuracy of combined AFP…
Circulating, intercellular adhesion molecule-1 in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma
Intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) is thought to play an important role in cellular immunological reactions. Expression can be induced by inflammatory cytokines in a wide variety of cells, including hepatocytes.To compare the behaviour of ICAM-1 in liver diseases.We assayed serum ICAM-1 (sICAM-1) in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma-associated liver cirrhosis, and compared them with a group of cirrhotic patients and controls. sICAM-1 values were also correlated with some biochemical parameters of liver function. Moreover, immunohistochemical localization of ICAM-1 was performed on liver tissue sections of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, liver cirrhosis and a sample of n…
Comparative responses to three different types of interferon-α in patients with chronic hepatitis C
We investigated the efficacy and tolerability of three different types of interferon-alpha, administered with the same schedule to naive patients with chronic hepatitis C. One hundred and seven patients with histologically proven chronic hepatitis C were enrolled during a period of three years and randomly divided into three groups, to receive (a) leukocyte-interferon-alpha, 6 MU three times a week for 4 months, followed by 3 MU three times a week for 8 months (Group I); (b) recombinant-IFN-alpha-2a, with the same schedule (Group II); and (c) lymphoblastoid-IFN-alpha-N1, with the same schedule (Group III). All patients were followed-up for 6 months to evaluate the long-term response. The 'C…