Clinical,epidemiological characteristics and indications for liver biopsy and treatment in immigrants with chronic hepatitis B at a referral hospital in Madrid

Summary. The increase in immigration from less developed countries to Europe has led to an increase in the incidence of hepatitis B infection. The objective of this study was to describe the clinical, epidemiological characteristics and indications for treatment of chronic hepatitis B in a cohort of immigrants, given the relative lack of current evidence. We performed a noninterventional retrospective chart review; different characteristics depending on geographical origin were compared. A case‐control study was also performed to describe factors potentially associated with chronic or past hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. We selected a random sample of 436 patients out of the 2989 immigrants attending during the study period (1989‐2008). Hepatitis B serology was performed in 74% (322/436): 10.6% had chronic HBV infection (95% CI: 7.4–13.7%), and 46.9% had evidence of past infection (95% CI: 41.7–52.0%). The average age was 31 years, 60% were men, and 70% were sub‐Saharan Africans. Chronic infection was related to being men (OR 2.03; 95%CI: 1.29–3.18), younger (OR 0.98; 0.96–0.99) and sub‐Saharan African (OR 5.41; 2.71–10.83). Past or current infection was related to male sex (OR 2.80; 1.81–4.30), longer time elapsed until first seen at the unit (OR 0.998; 0.997–1.000), HIV infection (OR 4.99; 1.15–21.60) and being sub‐Saharan African (OR 15.46; 8.97–27.18). These associations were not confirmed after adjustment for geographical origin. In 27% and 29.5% of patients, liver biopsy and treatment, respectively, would have been indicated. Prevalence of chronic HBV infection amongst immigrants is high, especially in sub‐Saharan Africans. Almost a third could be considered for liver biopsy or antiviral therapy.     

From neural signatures of emotional modulation to social cognition: individual differences in healthy volunteers and psychiatric participants

It is commonly assumed that early emotional signals provide relevant information for social cognition tasks. The goal of this study was to test the association between (a) cortical markers of face emotional processing and (b) social-cognitive measures, and also to build a model which can predict this association (a and b) in healthy volunteers as well as in different groups of psychiatric patients. Thus, we investigated the early cortical processing of emotional stimuli (N170, using a face and word valence task) and their relationship with the social-cognitive profiles (SCPs, indexed by measures of theory of mind, fluid intelligence, speed processing and executive functions). Group comparisons and individual differences were assessed among schizophrenia (SCZ) patients and their relatives, individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), individuals with euthymic bipolar disorder (BD) and healthy participants (educational level, handedness, age and gender matched). Our results provide evidence of emotional N170 impairments in the affected groups (SCZ and relatives, ADHD and BD) as well as subtle group differences. Importantly, cortical processing of emotional stimuli predicted the SCP, as evidenced by a structural equation model analysis. This is the first study to report an association model of brain markers of emotional processing and SCP.