Abstract Background Patients who are to receive chemotherapy require careful assessment of liver function prior to treatment to determine which drugs may not be appropriate, and which drug doses should be modified. Following therapy abnormalities of liver function tests may be due to the therapy rather than to progressive disease, and this distinction is of critical importance. Toxicity such ...

BACKGROUND Combined pegylated interferon and ribavirin has improved chronic hepatitis C (CH-C) therapy; however, sustained virological response is achieved in only about half of the patients with a 1b genotype infection. We assessed oral ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) on serum biomarkers as a possible treatment for interferon non-responders. METHODS CH-C patients with elevated alanine aminotrans...

PURPOSE This study evaluated the efficacy of 50% autologous serum eye drops in ocular surface diseases not improved by conventional therapy. METHODS We analyzed two groups: (1) acute eye pathologies (e.g., chemical burns) and (2) chronic eye pathologies (e.g., recurrent corneal erosion, neurotropic keratitis, and keratoconjunctivitis sicca). The patients were treated for surface instability a...

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of intra-articular injections of autologous conditioned serum on human hip osteoarthritis and to test whether a potential treatment effect might be increased by additional injections of steroids and the recombinant interleukin-1 receptor antagonist protein anakinra. We compared the effects of autologous conditioned serum 46 hip oste...

Reactivation of Hepatitis B virus causing liver damage is a concern in patients with chronic HBV infections who receive immunosuppressive or cytotoxic treatments. HBV screening should be considered for all patients going to receive immunosuppressive regimens which have the potential to induce reactivation of HBV infection. We discuss here a case of occult Hepatitis B flare after chemotherapy in...

Seventy two patients with classical or definite rheumatoid arthritis (RA) were randomly allocated to receive gold or D-penicillamine therapy (DPA) in a prospective study designed to evaluate whether it is possible to predict which patients will show radiological progression despite therapy. Forty five patients completed 12 months' treatment. There were no significant demographic or clinical dif...

Elevated enzyme activities in plasma may at times be attributed to the presence of macro-enzymes. The macro-enzymes are often serum enzymes in complex with immunoglobulins, resulting in a greater molecular mass that cannot be filtered by renal glomeruli and are, hence, retained in the plasma. The aspartate aminotransferase (AST) can exist as a macro-enzyme, although it has been rarely reported....

We administered zinc supplementation therapy over three years to patients with chronic hepatitis C and reported and that the aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanine aminotaransferase (ALT) levels decreased, and platelet counts increased, significantly in the group with increased serum zinc concentrations. We are continuing this treatment to clarify the long-term consequences and report her...