1,721,044 research outputs found
Through-the-needle biopsy of pancreatic cystic lesions: stronger evidences of higher diagnostic yield compared with cytology
No full textNo abstract availabl
The relevance of noninvasive tools to assess fibrosis in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease
No full textNon-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a growing cause of chronic liver diseases worldwide, involving about 25% of people. NAFLD incorporates a large spectrum of pathological conditions, from simple steatosis to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), cirrhosis and its complications include hepatic decompensation and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). This progression occurs, over many years, in an asymptomatic way, until advanced fibrosis appears. Thus, the differentiation of NASH from simple steatosis and identification of advanced hepatic fibrosis are key issues. To date, the histological assessment of fibrosis with liver biopsy is the gold stan-dard, but obviously, invasiveness is the greater threshold. In addition, rare but potentially life-threatening complications, poor acceptability, sampling variability and cost maybe restrict its use. Furthermore, due to the epidemic of NAFLD worldwide and several limitations of liver biopsy evaluation, noninvasive assessment tools to detect fibrosis in NAFLD patients are needed
Should we cure hepatitis C virus in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma while treating cancer?
No full textDirect acting antivirals (DAAs) stabilize or improve liver function in the majority of patients
with HCV cirrhosis. Hepatic decompensation is the main driver of death of patients with early,
successfully treated HCC superimposed to cirrhosis
. Treatment with DAAs could improve the
prognosis of these subjects, independently from the subsequent course of HCC, if the efficacy in
obtaining viral clearance is as high as in patients without a history of HCC, and if the risk of HCC
recurrence is unaffected
. When dealing with HCC patients, DAA
s can be indicated in two different
settings: a) subjects in which HCC has been already successfully treated (“cured” HCC), or b) subjects
whose HCC is still untreated or untreatable (“active” HCC). While there are abundant data on
“cured” HCC, evidence supporting treatment decisions in patients with “active” HCC is at best scarce
and controversial, since these patients as well as patients with HCC listed for liver transplantation
(LT) are usually excluded from treatment
The burden of hepatocellular carcinoma in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease: Screening issue and future perspectives
Full text linkIn recent decades, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has become the most common liver disease in the Western world, and the occurrence of its complications, such as hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), has rapidly increased. Obesity and diabetes are considered not only the main triggers for the development of the disease, but also two independent risk factors for HCC. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (such as PNPLA3, TM6SF2 and MBOAT7) are related to the susceptibility to the development of HCC and its progression. Therefore, an appropriate follow-up of these patients is needed for the early diagnosis and treatment of HCC. To date, international guidelines recommend the use of ultrasonography with or without alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) in patients with advanced fibrosis. Furthermore, the use of non-invasive tools could represent a strategy to implement surveillance performance. In this review, we analyzed the main risk factors of NAFLD-related HCC, the validated screening methods and the future perspectives
Biochemical biomarkers of NAFLD/NASH
No full textNonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common cause of chronic liver disease in the Western world and the global epidemics of obesity and type 2 diabetes have led to a dramatic increase of its prevalence and incidence. Among NAFLD patients, those with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) have a double risk of fibrosis progression, that is the main driver toward the evolution in cirrhosis and its complications, including hepatocellular carcinoma and hepatic decompensation. Furthermore, patients with NAFLD are also at risk for cardiovascular diseases and extrahepatic malignancies, that represent the first and the second cause of death, respectively. The availability of non-invasive scores to identify patients with NASH, avoiding to perform liver biopsy, still represents a relevant unmet medical need. Ideally, non-invasive biomarkers should be able to distinguish NASH patients among NALFD population, to assess the severity of liver fibrosis, to identify patients at risk of hepatic and extrahepatic complications and finally to predict the response to treatment. To date, liver biopsy remains the gold standard for the diagnosis and the stratification of the prognosis in NASH due to the lack of adequate non-invasive biomarkers in clinical practice. Several scores have been developed for the non-invasive assessment of fibrosis with promising results, although they are often limited by the high rate of false positive results and uncertainty areas. Further studies are needed to improve the diagnostic accuracy of non-invasive biomarkers or to develop new panels with the aim of predicting outcomes and response to treatments
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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