Natural History After Acute Necrotizing Pancreatitis: a Large US Tertiary Care Experience

Background

Most studies of acute necrotizing pancreatitis (ANP) focus on short-term outcomes. We evaluated long-term survival and outcomes following ANP.

Methods

Patients treated for ANP at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center from 2001 to 2008 were studied. Data on presentation and course during initial hospitalization and follow-up (median 34 months) was extracted.

Results

Mean age of patients (n?=?167) was 53?±?16 years; 70 % were male, 94 % white, 71 % transfers, 52 % biliary etiology, and 78 % had first-attack of acute pancreatitis. Majority had severe disease with high Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II (APACHE-II) score (median 11), length of stay (median 26 days), intensive care unit (ICU) admission (87 %), presence of systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) (90 %), persistent organ failure (60 %), and infected necrosis (50 %). Intervention was needed in 74 %. Eighteen (10.8 %) patients died during index hospitalization, 9 (5.4 %) during the first year, and 13 (7.8 %) after 1 year. Median survival was significantly shorter when compared with age- and sex-matched US general population (9.1 vs. 26.1 years, p?<?0.001). Increasing age (HR 1.05), persistent organ failure (HR 4.5), and >50 % necrosis (HR 3.8) were independent predictors of death at 1 year. In eligible patients, new-onset diabetes, oral pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy, and disability were noted in 45, 25, and 53 %, respectively.

Conclusion

ANP significantly impacts long-term survival. A high proportion of patients develop functional derangement and disability following ANP.

     

Clinical Features of Adult/Adolescent Atopic Dermatitis and Chinese Criteria for Atopic Dermatitis

Background:

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is an inflammatory skin disease characterized by chronic recurrent dermatitis with profound itching. Most patients have personal and/or family history of atopic diseases. Several criteria have been proposed for the diagnosis of AD. Although the clinical features of childhood AD have been widely studied, there has been less large-scale study on adult/adolescent AD. The aim of this study was to investigate the clinical features of adult/adolescent patients with chronic symmetrical eczema/AD and to propose Chinese diagnostic criteria for adult/adolescent AD.

Methods:

A hospital-based study was performed. Forty-two dermatological centers participated in this study. Adult and adolescent patients (12 years and over) with chronic symmetrical eczema or AD were included in this study. Questionnaires were completed by both patients and investigators. The valid questionnaires were analyzed using EpiData 3.1 and SPSS 17.0 software.

Results:

A total of 2662 valid questionnaires were collected (1369 male and 1293 female). Of all 2662 patients, 2062 (77.5%) patients had the disease after 12 years old, while only 600 (22.5%) patients had the disease before 12 years old, suggesting late-onset eczema/AD is common. Two thousand one hundred and thirty-nine (80.4%) patients had the disease for more than 6 months. One thousand one hundred and forty-four (43.0%) patients had a personal and/or family history of atopic diseases. One thousand five hundred and forty-eight (58.2%) patients had an elevated total serum IgE and/or eosinophilia and/or positive allergen-specific IgE. Based on these clinical and laboratory features, we proposed Chinese criteria for adult/adolescent AD. Of all 2662 patients, 60.3% were satisfied with our criteria, while only 48.2% satisfied with Hanifin Rajka criteria and 32.7% satisfied with Williams criteria, suggesting a good sensitivity of our criteria in adult/adolescent AD patients.

Conclusion:

Late-onset of eczema or AD is common. The clinical manifestations of AD are heterogeneous. We have proposed Chinese diagnostic criteria for adolescent and adult AD, which are simple and sensitive for diagnosis of adult/adolescent AD.     

131I联合促甲状腺激素抑制治疗对分化型甲状腺癌血生化及骨密度的影响

目的  观察术后131I联合促甲状腺激素（TSH）抑制治疗的分化型甲状腺癌（DTC）患者,研究TSH抑制治疗对血生化及骨密度（BMD）的影响。方法  选择DTC术后患者44例,均在术后使用131I清除残余甲状腺,“清甲”治疗后及时给予甲状腺素片行TSH抑制治疗,TSH抑制至<0.1 mU/L。“清甲”治疗6个月左右,进行“清甲”是否成功的“评估”或“清灶”治疗。患者2次入院均空腹测定血生化全套,包括谷丙转氨酶（GPT）、谷草转氨酶（GOT）、碱性磷酸酶（AKP）、血糖（GLU）、尿素氮（BUN）、肌酐（Cr）、钙（Ca）、磷（P）、总胆固醇（TC）、三酰甘油（TG）、高密度脂蛋白（HDL）、低密度脂蛋白（LDL）、降钙素（CT）、骨钙素（BGP）、甲状旁腺激素（PTH）、25羟维生素D3（VD3）;2次入院均测定腰椎（L1~4）、左股骨颈（Neck）、左大转子（Troch）、左沃氏三角区（Ward’s）的BMD（g/cm2）。2次入院数据的差值以Δ表示,如ΔGPT=GPT1-GPT2。结果  ①年龄和Ward1呈负相关,而且年龄和Neck2、Ward2负相关更明显,多元回归方程也有一致结果（Ward2=1.001~0.008）;年龄与ΔWard呈正相关。②术后时间间隔平均60.5 d,与ΔBGP呈负相关,与4个部位BMD无显著相关性。③TSH抑制时间与BGP2呈负相关,与Neck2呈正相关。结论  短期内（6个月左右）131I联合TSH抑制治疗对BMD的影响较小,仅表现为年龄和Ward呈负相关,且越是高龄患者治疗后Ward更低、ΔWard越大;术后时间间隔及TSH抑制时间对BMD的影响不显著。

     

Sunitinib malate and sorafenib may be beneficial at the treatment of advanced bladder cancer due to their anti-angiogenic effects

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common sustained arrhythmia, and treatments with anti-arrhythmia drugs (AADs) have been frustrating. Limitations of AADs prompted the development of percutaneous catheter ablation. In contrast to AADs, percutaneous catheter ablation offers the possibility of a lasting cure. The successful cure of AF by percutaneous catheter ablation comes from a widespread recognize that pulmonary vein antrum (PVA) plays an important role in the genesis and maintenance of AF, and circular ablation along the PVA can eliminate majority of AF. PVA is comprised of pulmonary vein-left atrium junctions. However, during ablation procedure, definition of PVA solely depends on angiography, and it is largely experience-dependent and there is a great deal of variation involved. Our study in patients with AF found that a unique potential with double deflections could be documented along PVA, but it cannot be recorded at PV side or LA side. Thus, we propose that documentation of PVA potentials can be used as a landmark to define PVA. Unlike angiography, documentation of PVA potentials can be objectively carried out by different operators, and the variations due to experience can be avoided.     

Computer prediction of allergen proteins from sequence-derived protein structural and physicochemical properties

BACKGROUND: Computational methods have been developed for predicting allergen proteins from sequence segments that show identity, homology, or motif match to a known allergen. These methods achieve good prediction accuracies, but are less effective for novel proteins with no similarity to any known allergen. METHODS: This work tests the feasibility of using a statistical learning method, support vector machines, as such a method. The prediction system is trained and tested by using 1005 allergen proteins from the Allergome database and 22,469 non-allergen proteins from 7871 Pfam families. RESULTS: Testing results by an independent set of 229 allergen and 6717 non-allergen proteins from 7871 Pfam families show that 93.0% and 99.9% of these are correctly predicted, which are comparable to the best results of other methods. Of the 18 novel allergen proteins non-homologous to any other proteins in the Swissprot database, 88.9% is correctly predicted. A further screening of 168,128 proteins in the Swissprot database finds that 2.9% of the proteins are predicted as allergen proteins, which is consistent with the estimated numbers from motif-based methods. CONCLUSIONS: Our study suggests that SVM is a potentially useful method for predicting allergen proteins and it has certain capability for predicting novel allergen proteins. Our software can be accessed at .     

The effects of FG7142 on two types of forgetting in 18-day-old rats

The authors studied the role of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) in 2 types of forgetting of fear in the developing rat. One type of forgetting studied was that observed after an intermediate retention interval (the "Kamin effect"); the other type studied was that observed after a longer interval (infantile amnesia). Rats were given pairings of an auditory conditioned stimulus with shock, and learned fear was assessed by freezing. Forgetting at an intermediate retention interval (1 hr) was not alleviated by the GABA-sub(A) receptor partial inverse agonist FG7142 (0, 1, 5, or 10 mg/kg), whereas forgetting at a longer retention interval (48 hr) was alleviated. These results suggest that in the developing rat, forgetting observed at different retention intervals is mediated by different physiological mechanisms.