Browsing by Author "Dragašević, Sanja (56505490700)"

Background/Aim: Primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) is an immune-mediated chronic cholestatic disease of liver, with a slow progression. The aim of our study was to determine the correlation of PBC, atrophic gastritis (AG) and gluten-sensitive enteropathy (GSE), to identify the macroscopic and histopathological modifications of gastric and duodenal mucosa which occur in PBC and to analyze the frequency of these changes compared to a control group. Methods: This study included 50 patients with PBC and 46 control subjects with the dyspeptic symptoms, without liver disease. All of the examined subjects underwent esophagogastroduodenoscopy. Macroscopic and histopathological findings of the gastric and duodenal mucosal samples were recorded and analyzed. Results: There was no statistically significant association between the PBC and AG, or between the PBC and Helicobacter pylori infection. There was a highly significant difference in the frequency of Helicobacter pylori infection and the presence of GSE in the patients in the control group compared to those with PBC. Conclusions: The patients with PBC are at a lower risk for Helicobacter pylori infectionand atrophic gastritis. Testing for GSE in the PBC patients may be beneficial, considering the higher incidence of GSE amongst these patients. GSE represents a risk factor for the presence of PBC and the patients with GSE are nearly four times more likely to have PBC. © 2019 Inst. Sci. inf., Univ. Defence in Belgrade. All rights reserved.

In polytrauma, injuries that may be surgically treated under regular circumstances due to a systemic inflammatory response become life- threatening. The inflammatory response involves a complex pattern of humoral and cellular responses and the expression of related factors is thought to be governed by genetic variations. This aim of this paper is to examine the influence of interleukin (IL) 6 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) -174C/G and -596G/A on the treatment outcome in severely injured patients. Forty-seven severely injured patients were included in this study. Patients were assigned an Injury Severity Score. Blood samples were drawn within 24 h after admission (designated day 1) and on subsequent days (24, 48, 72 hours and 7days) of hospitalization. The IL-6 levels were determined through ELISA technique. Polymorphisms were analyzed by a method of Polymerase Chain Reaction-Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (PCR). Among subjects with different outcomes, no statistically relevant difference was found with regards to the gene IL-6 SNP-174G/C polymorphism. More than a half of subjects who died had the SNP-174G/C polymorphism, while this polymorphism was represented in a slightly lower number in survivors. The incidence of subjects without polymorphism and those with heterozygous and homozygous gene IL-6 SNP-596G/A polymorphism did not present statistically significant variations between survivors and those who died. The levels of IL-6 over the observation period did not present any statistically relevant difference among subjects without the IL-6 SNP-174 or IL- 6 SNP -596 gene polymorphism and those who had either a heterozygous or a homozygous polymorphism. © 2014 Association of Basic Medical Sciences of FB&H. All rights reserved.

Introduction/Objective Due to a very high mortality risk, acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF) patients require early identification and intensive treatment. Precise prediction is crucial for determining the urgency degree and therapy appropriateness, considering high mortality and multitude of clinical resources. The aim of our study was to determine the exact cut-off values of various prognostic scores in the prediction of morality of ACLF. Methods This prospective study includes chronic liver disease (CLD) patients, admitted due to decompen-sation, that were subsequently diagnosed with ACLF at the Emergency unit. All patients were evaluated based on various prognostic scores, including Child–Pugh, MELD Na, MELD, SOFA, APACHE II, and CLIF C, which were calculated on admission. Results Alcoholic liver disease (ALD) was the most common underlying CLD cause (77.9%), followed by viral (8.6%), autoimmune (7.7%), and other causes (5.8%). A total of 37.5% of the patients died at the end of the first month of treatment. Average values of Child–Pugh, MELD Na, MELD, SOFA, APACHE II, and CLIF C scores were significantly higher in patients who died compared to survivors (p < 0.05). CLIF C score showed the best performance with a cut-off value of 50.5, with a sensitivity of 94.9% and specificity of 40%. Conclusion ACLF remains a condition with a high short-term mortality. Of all of the scores examined in our study, CLIF C proved to be the best scoring system for predicting short term and end of treatment mortality in patients with ACLF. © 2020, Serbia Medical Society. All rights reserved.

Introduction Gallbladder varices (GBV) represent a rare form of ectopic varices that usually occur in patients with portal hypertension and portal vein thrombosis. Case outline We present a case of a 38-year-old woman with decompensated autoimmune liver cirrhosis who was referred to our institution for evaluation for liver transplantation. She was incidentally discovered to have GBV during a routine B-mode abdominal ultrasonography as part of pre-transplant evaluation. GBV were confirmed by the Color Doppler Sonography, and multi detector computed tomography angiography. Interestingly, portal vein was patent and without thrombus. Conclusion Despite being asymptomatic in most cases, the presence of GBV is valuable information for a surgeon because they might be a source of potentially catastrophic bleeding, which is particularly poorly tolerated by patients with decompensated liver cirrhosis. Ultrasound has the irreplaceable role not only in discovering GBV, but in prompt diagnosis of rare, but unpredictable and fatal complications as well. © 2020, Serbia Medical Society. All rights reserved.