Somatostatin versus octreotide in the treatment of patients with gastrointestinal and pancreatic fistulas

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Gastrointestinal and pancreatic fistulas are characterized as serious complications following abdominal surgery, with a reported incidence of up to 27% and 46%, respectively. Fistula formation results in prolonged hospitalization, increased morbidity/mortality and increased treatment costs. Conservative and surgical approaches are both employed in the management of these fistulas. The purpose of the present study was to assess, evaluate and compare the potential clinical benefit and cost effectiveness of pharmacotherapy (somatostatin versus its analogue octreotide) versus conventional therapy

Sepsis: Prognostic role of apoptosis regulators in gastrointestinal cells

Background: Intestinal epithelial cell apoptosis has been reported in sepsis as a mechanism of organ failure. The aim of this study was to clarify the role of apoptosis-regulating proteins (bcl-2, bax, cytochrome-c, and caspase-8) in septic rats by studying their expression in gastric and intestinal epithelial cells. Methods: Adult Wistar rats were subjected to the cecal ligation and puncture (CLP) model of sepsis and randomly divided into two study groups. Sixty-two animals were sacrificed 6, 12, 24, 36, 48, and 60 h post-procedure, and 50 animals served as the survival study group. Sham-operated animals (n = 40) were used as controls. Gastric and intestinal tissue was excised, and immunohistochemical detection of bcl-2, bax, cytochrome-c, and caspase-8 protein expression was performed. Results: In gastric mucosa, sepsis induced upregulation of bax and downregulation of caspase-8 expression (p = 0.053 and p = 0.05, respectively). Both bax and caspase-8 were upregulated as early as 6 h post CLP and progressively decreased (p = 0.001, p = 0.004 respectively). In contrast, the expression of the anti-apoptotic bcl-2 was upregulated progressively during the sepsis syndrome (p = 0.03). In intestine, sepsis induced a fourfold upregulation of the cytoprotective bcl-2 (p = 0.0001), accompanied by a remarkable increase in bax (p = 0.002) and caspase-8 (p = 0.0001) expression and a decrease in cytochrome-c expression (p = 0.02). The time distribution of the apoptosis regulators followed the same pattern as in gastric tissue, showing an upregulation of the proapoptotic bax and cytochrome c (p = 0.04) during the early phases and a progressively increased expression of bcl-2 during the late phases (p = 0.0001). Bax expression in gastric epithelium of subjects with septic syndrome was detrimental to survival (p = 0.0001), whereas the expression of the cytoprotective bcl-2 in intestinal epithelium appeared to favor a good prognosis (p = 0.0001). Conclusions: Sepsis results in alterations of apoptosis regulators in gastrointestinal cells. Alterations of bax and bcl-2 expression in gastric and intestinal epithelial cells may predict the outcome in septic rats

Relative Preference Features and Age for 3 independent cohorts.

The dataset includes the relative preference variables that were calculated from 3 independent cohorts: 1) Emotion and Behavior Study, an online study of U.S. adult consumers (year 2016) .2) The Automated Mental Health Assessment Study, referred to as the AMHA-1 cohort. Random sample from the general U.S. population. (early 2021)3) The Automated Mental Health Assessment Study, referred to as the AMHA-2 cohort. Random sample from the general U.S. population. (late 2021)</p