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Query: UMLS:C0023890 (cirrhosis)
 42,195 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

A significant proportion of patients with cirrhosis can demonstrate elevated serum C-reactive protein (CRP) values which are not stimulated by bacterial infection. This may limit the clinical application of CRP determination in patients with cirrhosis. Therefore, we designed this prospective study to clarify whether serum CRP value could be used as an indicator of bacterial infection in patients with cirrhosis or not. A total of 129 sessions of admission (bacterial infection 46, bacterial infection and gastrointestinal hemorrhage 5, gastrointestinal hemorrhage 24, other causes 54) from 94 patients with cirrhosis were studied. Serum CRP value was determined on admission. The normal range of CRP value was < 6 micrograms/ml. The serum CRP values obtained on admission ranged from 3 to 232 micrograms/ml in patients with bacterial infection, 17 to 178 micrograms/ml in patients with bacterial infection and hemorrhage, < 1 to 44 micrograms/ml in patients with gastrointestinal hemorrhage, and < 1 to 54 micrograms/ml in patients with other causes of admission. Using the normal upper limit of CRP value as a cut-off value did not differentiate those patients with from those without bacterial infection. However, using the CRP value of 20 micrograms/ml which was obtained from receiver-operating characteristic curves could differentiate between two groups of patients (sensitivity 80.39%, specificity 80.77%, accuracy 80.62%). In conclusion, serum CRP determination can be used in the detection of bacterial infection in patients with cirrhosis. However, a new cut-off value should be applied.
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PMID:Clinical application of serum C-reactive protein measurement in the detection of bacterial infection in patients with liver cirrhosis. 1214 26

The aim of the study was to determine the prevalence and detailed data concerning the incidence of spontaneous bacterial peritonitis in the Czech Republic. Ninety-nine patients with liver cirrhosis and ascites were examined. Spontaneous bacterial peritonitis was diagnosed in 35 patients (35.4%). It was revealed more often in patients with alcoholic aetiology of cirrhosis whose anamnesis involved sub-febrile or febrile states and the deterioration of ascites. Elevated serum leucocyte counts and increased levels of C-reactive protein can contribute to the diagnosis. A low level of total protein and albumin in ascites predisposes to the increase of this infection. The reduction of the platelet count in a set of patients with spontaneous bacterial peritonitis indicates the influence of portal hypertension in the aetiology of the disease.
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PMID:Spontaneous bacterial peritonitis in the Czech Republic: prevalence and aetiology. 1281 4

The annual statistical survey conducted at the end of 2000 by the Japanese Society for Dialysis Therapy collected responses from 3358 (99.94%) of 3360 institutions. Japan's total dialysis patient population at the end of the year 2000, as identified by this survey, was 206,134, an increase of 8921 (4.5%) over 1999. This translates to 1624.1 patients per million population. The annual crude mortality rate was 9.4% for the period starting at the end of the year 1999 and ending at the end of the year 2000. The mean patient age at the initiation of dialysis treatment was 63.8 (+/- 13.9; +/- SD) years; the mean age of the overall dialysis patient population was 61.2 years (+/- 13.3). Both these mean ages, which had been increasing since 1983, again continued to increase. Among the primary diagnosis, the prevalence of diabetic nephropathy had continued to increase again since 1999, to 36.6%, whereas that of chronic glomerulonephritis had continued to decline, down to 32.5%, during the same one-year period since the 1999 survey. The 2000 years-end survey incorporated the following additional variables for the first time: usage of oral antihypertensives, pre- and post-dialysis systolic and diastolic blood pressures, serum HDL cholesterol level, types and dosage of oral Vitamin D analogs administered, dosage of oral calcium carbonate administered, history of intervention for peripheral vascular disease (bypass surgery, synthetic graft replacement, stenting), history of coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), history of percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA), whether stenting had been previously performed for the treatment of ischemic heart disease, number of cigarettes smoked, the type of vascular access used at the initiation of dialysis, and the year and month the vascular access was created. The survey results indicate that 60.9% of the total dialysis patient population was using oral antihypertensives. The patients' mean serum HDL cholesterol level was 47.65 +/- 18.47 mg/dL, showing positive correlation with serum albumin level and reverse correlation with body mass index. 1.6% of all dialysis patients had previously undergone amputation, and 0.7% had a history of bypass surgery for peripheral vascular disorder. 4.5% of hemodialysis patients had a history of cardiac infarction, 1.6% had previously undergone CABG, and 2.8%, PTCA. At the time the survey was conducted, 2.0% of all dialysis patients were undergoing oral Vitamin D analog pulse therapy, and 6% were undergoing intravenous Vitamin D analog pulse therapy. A history of amputation, myocardial infarction, cerebral infarction, and cerebral bleeding were identified as high-risk factors of vital prognosis. Additionally, high mortality risk was associated with the following: glutamic-pyruvic transaminase levels exceeding 20 IU/L; positive HCV antibody status; comorbid conditions such as hepatic cell carcinoma and liver cirrhosis; platelet counts below 100,000/mL or equal to or greater than 200,000/mL; C-reactive protein levels of 0.2 mg/dL and higher, leukocyte counts of less than 3000/mL or equal to or greater than 8000/mL; and body mass index of below 22 kg/m2, as well as total serum cholesterol levels of below 160 mg/dL or equal to or greater than 260 mg/dL.
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PMID:The current state of chronic dialysis treatment in Japan (as of December 31, 2000). 1292 Nov 11

Incidence of bacterial infections in hospitalised patients with liver disease is high. Due to a liver dysfunction immune reactivity is significantly impaired and bacterial infections are more frequent. Also incidence of nosocomial infections is higher in patients with liver disease compared to patients hospitalised for other conditions. To make a differential diagnosis of infectious and non-infectious aetiology of an inflammation is very difficult. Characteristic laboratory tests for bacterial infection include test of a number of leucocytes in peripheral blood, differential count of leucocytes, erythrocyte sedimentation, procalcitonin, C-reactive protein, tumor necrosis factor alpha, interleukin-1, interleukin-6, interleukin-8, and complement fragment C3a. Clinically the most significant are C-reactive protein test and procalcitonin test. Procalcitonin is a protein, a calcitonin precursor, which is in healthy individuals produced by cells of thyroid gland. A half-life of procalcitonin in serum is 20-24 hours which makes it suitable for daily monitoring and enables to control a course of treatment and to distinguish bacterial infection from other types of inflammations. Procalcitonin levels rise in bacterial, parasite, and yeast infections. Elevated procalcitonin levels appear only in inflammations of an infectious etiology with systemic signs. In patients with liver cirrhosis bacterial infections are more frequent. They usually include spontaneous bacterial peritonitis, infection of the respiratory system, urinary infections, and bacteremia. A timely proof of a bacterial infection and an appropriate and effective antibiotic therapy lead to an improvement of the general state of a patient and to his/her better prognosis. Procalcitonin determination is appropriate for diagnosing infections and control of treatment.
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PMID:[Procalcitonin as an indicator of infection in patients with liver cirrhosis]. 1507 92

Since the diagnosis of extrapulmonary tuberculosis (EPT) is largely depended on the physician's suspicion in respect of the disease, we believed that it would be worthwhile to scrutinize the clinical characteristics of EPT. Thus, here we present retrospectively evaluated clinical manifestations of patients who were diagnosed as EPT cases in a tertiary referral care hospital. Medical records of 312 patients, diagnosed as having EPT at Yongdong Severance hospital from January 1997 to December 1999, were reviewed retrospectively. In total 312 patients, 149 (47.8%) males and 163 (52.2%) females aged from 13 years to 87 years, were included into this study. The most common site of the involvement was pleura (35.6%). The patients complained of localized symptoms (72.4%) more frequently than systemic symptoms (52.2%). The most common symptom was pain at the infected site (48.1%). Leukocytosis, anemia, and elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and C-reactive protein (CRP) were found in 12.8%, 50.3%, 79.3% and 63.1% of the patients, respectively. Twenty-four percent of the patients had underlying medical illnesses such as, diabetes mellitus or liver cirrhosis, or were over 60 years old. In 67.3% of patients, tuberculosis was suspected at the initial visit. However, tuberculosis was microbiologically proven in only 23.7% of the patients. The time interval from the symptom onset to the diagnosis varied, with the mean duration of the period 96 days. Pulmonary parenchymal abnormal lesions were found in 133 patients (42.6%) on chest radiographs. EPT has a wide spectrum of clinical manifestations, so it is difficult to diagnose it. Based on our studies, only 11.2% of the patients were confirmed as EPT. So it is important that the physician who first examines the patient should have a high degree of suspicion based on the chest radiography, localized or systemic symptoms and several laboratory parameters reviewed in this study.
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PMID:Clinical manifestations and diagnosis of extrapulmonary tuberculosis. 1522 32

To assess the effect of liver dysfunction on the production of C-reactive protein (CRP), CRP levels were evaluated in patients with Escherichia coli bacteremia with or without liver cirrhosis (LC). Thirty patients of each kind were selected as case and control groups, respectively. A matched control of 30 LC patients without acute infection was also included. In the patients with E. coli bacteremia, median CRP was 6.2 mg/dL (range 0.2-22.1) in the LC patients and 14.6 mg/dL (range 5.8-39.6) in the patients without liver dysfunction (P < 0.001). In the advanced LC patients in Child-Pugh class C, median CRP was 5.0 mg/dL (range 0.2-12.1) in patients with E. coli bacteremia and 0.5 mg/dL (range 0.1-1.2) in patients without acute infection (P < 0.001). Our data suggest that, although CRP levels are reduced in response to acute infection, production is nevertheless maintained even in patients with advanced liver dysfunction.
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PMID:Production of C-reactive protein in Escherichia coli-infected patients with liver dysfunction due to liver cirrhosis. 1580 12

Concentrations of C-reactive protein (CRP) and procalcitonin (PCT) have been suggested as markers of infection. The liver is believed to be a key source of CRP and PCT. For this reason we assessed the predictive value of these markers in patients with hepatic cirrhosis in a 31-bed university-hospital department of intensive care. Demographic, clinical, laboratory, and microbiologic data were collected prospectively over 9 months. Of 864 patients included in the study, 79 (9%) had hepatic cirrhosis. Patients with cirrhosis were more likely to have a medical than a surgical admission diagnosis (67 vs 47%, P = .03). They also had a higher rate of infection (48 vs 30%, P = .03) and higher mortality (44 vs 17%, P = .01) than did patients without cirrhosis. We detected no differences in CRP and PCT concentrations among patients with cirrhosis and different disease severity as assessed on the basis of Child-Pugh score. The serum CRP concentration (admission 11.2 +/- 4.6 vs 13.0 +/- 5.8, maximum 13.9 +/- 6.4 vs 18.8 +/- 7.3 mg/dL) and PCT (admission 1.3 +/- 0.9 vs 2.0 +/- 1.4, maximum 3.3 +/- 1.8 vs 3.4 +/- 2.1 ng/mL) were slightly lower in infected patients with cirrhosis than in infected patients without cirrhosis, but the differences were not statistically significant. Although the liver is considered the main source of CRP and a source of PCT, serum levels of these acute-phase proteins are not significantly lower in patients with cirrhosis than in other patients. Moreover, the predictive power of CRP and PCT for infection was similar for patients with and without cirrhosis.
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PMID:Serum levels of C-reactive protein and procalcitonin in critically ill patients with cirrhosis of the liver. 1631 May 18

A 70-year-old man with liver cirrhosis and previous gastrectomy admitted for fever, coughing, and bloody sputum soon after convalescing from pulmonary tuberculosis had a peripheral white blood cell count of 9,900/microL, C-reactive protein of 14.1mg/dL, serum albumin of 2.0g/dL, and serum positive for antiaspergillus and beta-D glucan antibodies. Chest radiography showed thickening of the walls of the large residual cavities with previous tuberculosis lesions and infiltrates around them. On day 2 of hospitalization, Aspergillus fumigatus without other bacillus was detected in sputum culture taken on admission. Despite immediate treatment with intravenous micafungin and oral itraconazole and improved brief initial improvement, his general condition abruptly deteriorated into frequent massive hemoptysis and he developed of shock, respiratory failure, and severe malnutrition, dying 30 days later. Autopsy findings showed pulmonary aspergillosis in and around the large cavities and on the other side of the lungs. Pulmonary aspergillosis without hematological malignanciy and immunosuppression can thus be abruptly severe and fatal due to malnourishment stemming from pre-existing conditions such as chronic hepatitis despite prompt, ordinarily adequate medical treatment.
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PMID:[Autopsy case of pulmonary aspergillosis soon after convalescence from pulmonary tuberculosis]. 1644 78

Because of limitations in biopsy procedure, several non-invasive tests have been developed for predicting the histological findings in chronic hepatitis. A fibrosis (F) score 1 or above and necroinflammation [histological activity index (HAI)] score 4 or above are required to initiate the treatment in chronic viral hepatitis. Literature includes many studies on hyaluronic acid (HA) as a non-invasive procedure in predicting histological findings but lacks on high-sensitive-C-reactive protein (hsCRP). We evaluated the diagnostic value of HA and hsCRP in patients with chronic viral hepatitis. Ninety-eight subjects (42 chronic viral hepatitis, 28 cirrhosis and 28 healthy controls) were included in the study. Liver biopsies were performed on 42 chronic hepatitis patients and assessed by Ishak scoring system. All sera were stored at -70 degrees C until assay. Many laboratory parameters related to viral hepatitis, HA and hsCRP were studied following the instructions. We tried to determine a cut-off value for HA to represent > or =F1 score and that for hsCRP to represent > or =4 HAI score. Hepatitis B virus was the predominant aetiology of chronic hepatitis in our study. Mean HA levels were 113, 754 and 24 ng/ml in patients with chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis and controls, respectively (anova, p < 0.001). A HA level >64.7 ng/ml had a 100% specificity for diagnosing chronic hepatitis. A value > or =154 ng/ml had a 100% specificity, 100% positive predictive value and 90% negative predictive value for diagnosing liver cirrhosis (Area 1.00; p < 0.0001). A cut-off value of 63 ng/ml for HA had a 100% specificity for diagnosing fibrosis score > or =1 in chronic hepatitis (Area 0.86; p < 0.001). An hsCRP level >0.56 mg/dl had a 100% specificity and 12% sensitivity for diagnosing chronic hepatitis (Area 0.71; p = 0.002), while cut-off of 0.53 mg/dl had 75% specificity for diagnosing HAI > or = 4 in chronic hepatitis (Area 0.32; p = 0.132). This study supported the HA level in predicting fibrosis score > or =1 with a cut-off value of 63 ng/ml. Cut-off of 154 ng/ml had a strong worth for cirrhosis. A cut-off of hsCRP for predicting HAI score > or =4 warrants further evaluation in wider study populations. We concluded that we are a bit closer to the strategy for guiding therapy in patients with chronic hepatitis, without a liver biopsy.
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PMID:Replacement of hystological findings: serum hyaluronic acid for fibrosis, high-sensitive C-reactive protein for necroinflamation in chronic viral hepatitis. 1731 11

Fever is one of the more common chief complaints of patients who visit emergency departments (ED). Many febrile patients have markedly elevated C-reactive protein (CRP) levels and normal white blood cell (WBC) counts. Most of these patients have bacterial infection and no previous underlying disease of impaired WBC functioning. We reviewed patients who visited our ED between November 2003 and July 2004. The WBC count and CRP level of patients over 18 years of age who visited the ED because of or with fever were recorded. Patients who had normal WBC count (4,000-10,000/L) and high CRP level (> 100 mg/L) were included. The data, including gender, age and length of hospital stay, were reviewed. Underlying diseases, diagnosis of the febrile disease and final condition were recorded according to the chart. Within the study period, 54,078 patients visited our ED. Of 5,628 febrile adults, 214 (3.8%) had elevated CRP level and normal WBC count. The major cause of febrility was infection (82.24%). Most of these patients were admitted (92.99%). There were 32 patients with malignant neoplasm, nine with liver cirrhosis, 66 with diabetes mellitus and 11 with uremia. There were no significant differences in age and gender between patients with and those without neoplasm. However, a higher inhospital mortality rate and other causes of febrility were noted in patients with neoplasm. It was not rare in febrile patients who visited the ED to have a high CRP level but normal WBC count. These patients did not necessarily have an underlying malignant neoplasm or hematologic illness. Factors other than malignant neoplasm or hematologic illness may be associated with the WBC response, and CRP may be a better indicator of infection under such conditions.
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PMID:Characteristics of febrile patients with normal white blood cell counts and high C-reactive protein levels in an emergency department. 1850 22


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