Bacterial infections in patients with liver cirrhosis

Bacterial infections represent a frequent complication of liver cirrhosis carrying a significantly greater risk of morbidity and mortality as compared to that observed in non-cirrhotic patients. Such unfavourable prognosis is related to the systemic complications (liver and renal failure, shock, coagulopathy, multiple organ failure) induced by a series of pro-inflammatory and immunological systems which are activated by bacteria and their pathogenetic products.The epidemiology of bacterial infections in cirrhosis has changed in the last years with a marked increase of Gram+ infections and the emergence of multi-resistant bacteria.The severity of liver disease represents the major clinical factor predisposing to bacterial infections, which are asymptomatic or paucisymptomatic at presentation in almost half of the cases. Aim of this review is to summarise the clinical and therapeutic aspects of bacterial infections in cirrhotic patients. The most common sites of infection are the urinary tract, ascites, blood, lungs and soft tissues.Beside antibiotics, it has been proposed the administration of human albumin to prevent the development of renal failure in patients with spontaneous bacterial peritonitis and, more recently, the use of hydrocortisone to treat cirrhotic patients with septic shock

Automation of one-loop QCD corrections

We present the complete automation of the computation of one-loop QCD corrections, including UV renormalization, to an arbitrary scattering process in the Standard Model. This is achieved by embedding the OPP integrand reduction technique, as implemented in CutTools, into the MadGraph framework. By interfacing the tool so constructed, which we dub MadLoop, with MadFKS, the fully automatic computation of any infrared-safe observable at the next-to-leading order in QCD is attained. We demonstrate the flexibility and the reach of our method by calculating the production rates for a variety of processes at the 7 TeV LHC.Comment: 64 pages, 12 figures. Corrected the value of m_Z in table 1. In table 2, corrected the values of cross sections in a.4 and a.5 (previously computed with mu=mtop/2 rather than mu=mtop/4). In table 2, corrected the values of NLO cross sections in b.3, b.6, c.3, and e.7 (the symmetry factor for a few virtual channels was incorrect). In sect. A.4.3, the labeling of the four-momenta was incorrec

Report of the Topical Group on Top quark physics and heavy flavor production for Snowmass 2021

This report summarizes the work of the Energy Frontier Topical Group on EW Physics: Heavy flavor and top quark physics (EF03) of the 2021 Community Summer Study (Snowmass). It aims to highlight the physics potential of top-quark studies and heavy-flavor production processes (bottom and charm) at the HL-LHC and possible future hadron and lepton colliders and running scenarios

A case of prolonged cholestatic hepatitis induced by azithromycin in a young woman

Azithromycin, a semisynthetic macrolides, is frequently prescribed for the treatment of middle ear and upper respiratory tract infections, bronchitis, and community-acquired pneumonia. This antibiotic is usually well tolerated, and a rapid resolving cholestatic hepatitis has been described up to now only in six patients all, except one, over 65 years of age. We here report the case of a prolonged cholestatic hepatitis after administration of azithromycin in a young woman with no history of liver disease

Multiple Pregnancy and the Risk of Postpartum Hemorrhage: Retrospective Analysis in a Tertiary Level Center of Care

The aim of our study was to identify characteristics associated with postpartum hemorrhage (PPH defined as blood loss >1000 mL) in twin pregnancies in order to select patients at higher risk to be treated. This retrospective study includes multiple pregnancies between 2015 and 2020. The possible association between pregnancy characteristics and the primary endpoint (occurrence of PPH) was conducted using chi-square or Fisher exact test and Wilcoxon test. Then, univariate logistic models were performed considering as outcome the PPH, and the odds ratios with 95% CI were estimated. Finally, a multivariate logistic model was implemented, including all significant covariates. Seven hundred seven twin pregnancies giving birth beyond 32 weeks were included and of those, 120 (16.97%) had a PPH. The univariate analysis showed that factors significantly associated with PPH were: Preterm delivery, episiotomy, neonatal weight, and mode of delivery. The multivariate analysis showed that the most important factors were episiotomy and neonatal weight. The results show that the performance of episiotomy and the neonatal weight are the factors that most impact the risk of PPH in twin pregnancies. The correct identification of factors associated with PPH in twins could ideally allow to modify the clinical management and positively affect the rate of complications