Search results for "Chronic Liver Disease"
showing 10 items of 165 documents
Current and forthcoming perspectives in linkage to care of hepatitis C virus infection: Assessment of an Italian focus group
2019
Abstract Hepatitis C virus (HCV) remains a significant public health problem and is one of the major causes of chronic liver disease worldwide. In recent years many new tools to facilitate widespread HCV screening and new therapeutic options with excellent efficacy and tolerability profiles and cost lowering policies have become available. To fully utilise these new tools, the link between local and specialist centres for the management of HCV infection must be reinforced. In order to GAIN further insight into these aspects, with a particular focus on the Italian scenario, a group of experts met to discuss relevant aspects and open issues on chronic HCV. As a summary of that meeting, the fo…
Guinea pig transglutaminase immunolinked assay does not predict coeliac disease in patients with chronic liver disease
2001
BACKGROUND—It has been suggested that serological screening for coeliac disease (CD) should be performed in patients with chronic unexplained hypertransaminasaemia. AIMS—To evaluate the specificity for CD diagnosis of serum IgA antitissue transglutaminase (tTG) determination in consecutive patients with chronic hypertransaminasaemia using the most widely utilised ELISA based on tTG from guinea pig as the antigen. PATIENTS AND METHODS—We studied 98 patients with chronic hypertransaminasaemia, evaluated for the first time in a hepatology clinic. Serum anti-tTG and antiendomysial (EmA) assays were performed. Patients positive for EmA and/or anti-tTG were proposed for intestinal biopsy. Finally…
Science to Practice: Should Biopsy Be Performed in Potential Liver Donors When Unenhanced CT Shows an Unacceptable Degree of Steatosis for Transplant…
2006
Park et al (1) have demonstrated that unenhanced CT can accurately depict moderate to severe (ie, ≥30%) macrovesicular steatosis, thereby allowing avoidance of biopsy in potential living liver donors who have an unacceptable degree of steatosis for transplantation. Biopsy will still be needed in donors with macrovesicular steatosis of less than 30% at unenhanced CT to rule out occult chronic liver disease and more severe steatosis that is undetected at CT. © RSNA, 2006.
Validity and reliability of the Italian version of the Chronic Liver Disease Questionnaire (CLDQ-I) for the assessment of health-related quality of l…
2005
Background.: The Chronic Liver Disease Questionnaire is a specific health-related quality of life assessment designed for patients with liver diseases. Aim.: The aim of this paper is to report on the validity, reliability and sensitivity to change of the Italian version (Chronic Liver Disease Questionnaire-I) in subjects with HCV infection. Subjects.: The Chronic Liver Disease Questionnaire-I was administered to 350 subjects with HCV infection together with the World Health Organization Quality of Life Assessment, abbreviated version, a generic quality of life assessment. Methods.: The instrument was translated from English, backtranslated and reviewed in focus groups in the framework of a …
Characteristics of patients with hepatitis C virus-related chronic liver diseases just before the era of oral direct-acting antiviral therapy in Italy
2018
Background In 2017, oral direct-acting antiviral (DAA) therapy for chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection became available free of charge for all HCV-RNA-positive patients, irrespective of their fibrosis stage. Aim The aim of this study was to evaluate the characteristics of HCV-related chronic liver disease (CLD) in Italy just before the introduction of DAA therapy. Patients and methods Patients with CLD were enrolled in two national surveys conducted in 2001 and in 2014. The two surveys prospectively enrolled patients aged older than 18 years referring to Italian liver units throughout the country using a similar clinical approach and analytical methods. Results Out of the 12 564 patie…
Hepatocellular Carcinoma and Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease: From a Clinical to a Molecular Association
2009
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most frequent primary neoplasm of the liver, and is the fourth most common malignancy worldwide. It is also the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths. Most cases of HCC develop on a pre-existing chronic liver disease, usually due to hepatitis C virus (HCV), hepatitis B virus (HBV), or alcohol. However, between 15% and 50% of HCC develops in the absence of a known etiology of liver disease, and different lines of evidence identify in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) a possible relevant risk factor for occurrence of HCC. Insulin resistance (IR), steatosis, oxidative stress and imbalances in adipokine/cytokine interplay, the most important …
HCV viraemia is more important than genotype as a predictor of response to interferon in sicily (Southern Italy)
1996
Abstract Background/Aims: To investigate host- and virus-related factors predictive of early and sustained alanine aminotransferase normalization after interferon therapy for HCV-related chronic liver disease, in an area where genotype 1 is highly prevalent. Methods: We studied 100 patients with HCV-RNA positive chronic liver disease (73 chronic hepatitis and 27 cirrhosis) undergoing alpha-interferon treatment. Thirty-four patients had an early response but relapsed, 15 patients remained into sustained response for at least 12 months after therapy, and 51 patients did not respond. Serum HCV-RNA levels were assessed by bDNA (Chiron), and genotype by LiPA (Innogenetics) and by sequencing of t…
Impact of PNPLA3 and IFNL3 polymorphisms on hepatic steatosis in Asian patients with chronic hepatitis C.
2017
Background and aims A recent meta-analysis revealed that the genotype PNPLA3 rs738409 GG is associated with a higher risk of hepatic steatosis (HS) in Caucasian patients with chronic hepatitis C (CHC). However, controversial results were found regarding Asian populations. Furthermore, previous studies have shown a negative association between interferon lambda 3 (IFNL3) rs12979860 CC and HS in Caucasian CHC patients, but there have been no reports indicating any such association in Asian populations. In this study, then, we investigated the association of PNPLA3 and IFNL3 polymorphisms with HS in Asian CHC patients. Methods We enrolled consecutive CHC patients who underwent liver biopsy pri…
Does chemotherapy prevent HCV-related hepatocellular carcinoma? Cons.
2010
The accuracy and the reliability of well-recognized clinical, virologic, histologic, and molecular risk factors for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are still insufficient. Thus, accurate risk prediction of cancer development in individual patients with the aim of selecting high risk cohorts of patients for HCC chemoprevention programs remains an elusive goal. Future directions in chemoprevention of HCC will be in the development of molecular risk models and of new chemopreventive agents. Studies examining multiple genes and proteins (genomics and proteomics) in the same HCCs will be required to evaluate this possibility thoroughly. A strategy aiming at preventing chronic liver disease of any…
Competency of different cell models to predict human hepatotoxic drugs.
2014
The liver is the most important target for drug-induced toxicity. This vulnerability results from functional liver features and its role in the metabolic elimination of most drugs. Drug-induced liver injury is a significant leading cause of acute, chronic liver disease and an important safety issue when developing new drugs.This review describes the advantages and limitations of hepatic cell-based models for early safety risk assessment during drug development. These models include hepatocytes cultured as monolayer, collagen-sandwich; emerging complex 3D configuration; liver-derived cell lines; stem cell-derived hepatocytes.In vitro toxicity assays performed in hepatocytes or hepatoma cell …