Positivity of rheumatoid factor (RF) in the course of Hepatitis C virus HCV infection has been described in many papers, with percentages between 30% and 80%, but no data are reported on the behaviour of this parameter during the treatment. In the present retrospective study, 66 patients with HCV infection and positivity for RF were observed between March 2001 and January 2004; they had receive...

OBJECTIVE Hyperaminotransferasemia is an important problem in obese patients. We decide to examine the changes in hyperaminotransferasemia after weight reduction in obese patients with and without NAFLD secondary to a high monounsaturated fat vs. a high polyunsaturated fat hypocaloric diets. PATIENTS AND METHODS A population of 306 obese patients was randomly allocated to two groups: Diet M (...

Diagnosis of de novo autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) after orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) is challenging especially in the absence of hyper-γ-globulinemia. Circulating autoantibodies are not sensitive nor specific in de novo AIH but when positive increase the diagnostic probability. We report the discovery of novel liver microsomal (LM) autoantibodies against CYP-2C19 in a 9-year-old boy wit...

Celiac disease is an autoimmune disorder primarily targeting the small bowel, although extraintestinal extensions have been reported. The autoimmune processes can affect the liver with manifestations such as primary biliary cirrhosis and autoimmune hepatitis. We describe a 61-year-old woman with celiac disease and an increased levels of aminotransferases. The persistence of increased levels of ...

Venous thrombosis can complicate inflammatory bowel diseases, both in adult and pediatric patients, and a few adult cases of thrombotic storm, ie, thrombosis at multiple sites occurring over a period of a few days to a few weeks, have been described. However, venous thrombosis as the first manifestation of an inflammatory bowel disease is extremely rare. We report the case of a 14-year-old girl...

Ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) liver injury occurs when blood flow is restored after prolonged ischemia. A short interruption of blood flow (ischemic preconditioning [IP]) induces tolerance to subsequent prolonged ischemia through ill-defined mechanisms. Cardiotrophin (CT)-1, a cytokine of the interleukin-6 family, exerts hepatoprotective effects and activates key survival pathways like JAK/STAT3. ...

A 39 year-old female was admitted to the emergency department due to watery diarrhea and weight loss for 3 weeks. Over the last days she also presented menorrhagia and vomiting. Physical examination revealed skin paleness and slight dehydration. Laboratory investigation showed microcytic anemia (hemoglobin 10,6 g/dL), multiple nutricional deficiencies and hypertransaminasemia (aspartate aminotr...

BACKGROUND TMEM199 deficiency was recently shown in four patients to cause liver disease with steatosis, elevated serum transaminases, cholesterol and alkaline phosphatase and abnormal protein glycosylation. There is no information on the long-term outcome in this disorder. RESULTS We here present three novel patients with TMEM199-CDG. All three patients carried the same set of mutations (c.1...

Abstract Introduction Neutral Lipid Storage Diseases (NLSDs) are rare diseases with autosomal recessive transmission characterized by a defect in the metabolism of triglycerides that accumulate many tissues. Vacuoles containing lipids white blood cells (Jordans anomaly) considered diagnostic marker. In particular, NLSD–M (NLSD–myopathy) is caused mutations PNPLA2 gene (Patatin Like Phospholipas...