BACKGROUND Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a worldwide public health problem. Nine HBV genotypes (A-I) have been already discovered. HBV genotypes are important both in the clinical manifestation of disease and treatment response. Moreover, HBV DNA without HBs (Hepatitis B surface)-antigenemia was detected in some patients with chronic hepatitis (occult hepatitis). There is little informat...

BACKGROUND Autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) and cryptogenic chronic hepatitis (CCH) are important causes of liver failure in children, frequently necessitating orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT). The aim of this study is to review disease progression and potential differences between subgroups of children with AIH and CCH. METHODS The medical records of 65 children diagnosed with AIH or CCH bet...

Cryptogenic epilepsy is a group of epilepsy syndromes where aetiology is unknown but an underlying brain disease is suspected. Increased seropositivity for Toxocara and Toxoplasma gondii have been observed in epileptic patients with sparse data about their seropositivity in cryptogenic epileptic patients. Therefore, we investigated the probable relationship between seropositivity against T. gon...

the liver is a multifactorial organ which is involved in a number of critical excretory, synthetic and metabolic functions. although the term 'liver function test' is commonly used, it is imprecise since many of the tests, such as transaminase, do not measure liver function. therefore, these tests should be referred to as 'liver enzyme tests', and 'liver function tests' should be the term used ...

Epidemiological data have demonstrated that the prevalence of either obesity or hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is increasing worldwide during past decades, and obesity has been unequivocally shown to be a risk factor for HCC. It has been reported that a significant proportion of HCC in obesity develops in cryptogenic cirrhosis, which is largely associated with the progression of nonalcoholic fa...

This chapter introduces the history, definitional and semantic issues, spectrum and general importance of non-alcoholic fatty liver diseases (NAFLD). Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is a form of metabolic liver disease in which fatty change (steatosis) is associated with lobular inflammation, hepatocyte injury and/or hepatic fibrosis. It comprises a pathogenic link in the chain of NAFLD tha...

Klebsiella pneumoniae (K. pneumoniae) is one of the most common pathogens to cause liver abscess. Because K. pneumoniae is highly virulent, it may cause embolic complications. The rate of metastatic infection has a range of 3.5% to 20%. Thus, a diagnostic work-up for metastatic complications should be employed in K. pneumoniae liver abscess cases, including chest radiography and computed tomo g...

AIM To explore the applicability of the Asia-Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver (APASL) and European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) guidelines for acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF) in profiling patients and determining the outcome. METHODS Patients admitted to a tertiary hospital in Singapore with acute decompensation of liver disease from January 2004 to July 2...