Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: EC:2.3.1.109 (AST)
 6,066 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Ninety-seven cases of pyogenic liver abscesses in a 4-yr period were studied: 27.8% (27 cases) were associated with biliary tract stone, 5.2% (five cases) were associated with biliary tract cancer, and there were two cases of diabetes (2.1%) associated with anal infection, but 63.9% (63 cases) were diagnosed as cryptogenic. Forty patients (64.5%) in the cryptogenic group had diabetes mellitus, and 23 of them (23/40, 57.5%) had gas-forming infection. All patients received parenteral antibiotics therapy, percutaneous aspiration, drainage, or operation. The overall mortality was 16.5%. Diabetes mellitus alone, without demonstrable infectious foci, was an important predisposing factor for pyogenic liver infection. Furthermore, to evaluate the clinical importance of gas-forming pyogenic liver infections, we separated these 42 diabetic patients into gas-forming and non-gas-forming groups, after sonography and CT scan. Klebsiella pneumoniae was the major pathogen in both groups. There was no significant difference in the clinical manifestations, complication, bacterial culture, or laboratory data between these two groups, except that the AST level was higher in the gas-forming group. However, the gas-forming group had higher mortality rate (30.4% vs. 5.3%). Gas-forming liver abscesses were common among the diabetics. Early and adequate drainage for pyogenic liver abscesses with parenteral antibiotics are crucial in their management.
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PMID:Pyogenic liver abscess in Taiwan: emphasis on gas-forming liver abscess in diabetics. 823 41

The systematic treatment based on gemcitabine plus cisplatin is recommended as the current standard chemotherapy for unresectable or metastatic biliary tract cancers. However, the exact benefits from the recognized regime are still dismal. We thus elicit this study in an attempt to analyze whether targeted therapy coupled with various chemotherapy could produce improvement of survival benefits. The clinical trials were searched electronically from databases till July 2016 published in English and Chinese. Nine hundred and sixty-four patients from 7 trials were identified in our analysis. The overall analysis achieved a significantly higher overall response rate (ORR) among the patients treated with targeted drugs plus chemotherapy than chemotherapy alone (OR=1.87; 95% CI: 1.37-2.57; P=0.000), but failed in the overall progression-free survival (PFS) [mean difference (MD)=0.63; 95% CI:-0.45-1.72; P=0.26] and overall survival (OS) (MD=-0.67; 95% CI:-2.54-1.20; P=0.49). In the sub analysis, better ORR was obtained with the addition of EGFR (OR=1.75; 95% CI: 1.20-2.56; P=0.004) and VEGFR (OR=2.5; 95% CI: 1.28-4.87; P=0.007) targeted therapy. Furthermore, the sub analysis of EGFR target showed an significant improvement on PFS (MD=1.36; 95% CI: 0.29-2.43; P=0.01). No significant differences were observed in the incidences of neutropenia (OR=1.37; 95% CI: 0.89-2.12), thrombocytopenia (OR=1.40; 95% CI: 0.83-2.39), anemia (OR=1.21; 95% CI: 0.62-2.38), peripheral neuropathy (OR=1.52; 95% CI: 0.81-2.88), increased AST/ALT (OR=1.40; 95% CI: 0.82-2.39) as well as fatigue (OR=1.65; 95% CI: 0.96-2.84) in either of the treatment groups. In conclusion, better ORR associated with chemotherapy combined with targeted therapy (both targeting EGFR and VEGF) is found in the present meta-analysis without the cost of increased unacceptable toxicities, but regretfully not for the OS. The sub-analysis of targeting EGFR instead of VEGF obtains a superior PFS. Otherwise, there is no statistically significant difference in the overall PFS between the combination regime and chemotherapy alone. Given the paucity of favorable data, we need further studies to characterize optimal targeted agents to confirm the potential value to biliary tract cancer.
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PMID:Efficacy and safety of chemotherapy with or without targeted therapy in biliary tract cancer: A meta-analysis of 7 randomized controlled trials. 2839 47