Study of serum uric acid in liver cirrhosis and its correlation with Child Turcotte Pugh, MELD and UKELD score

Background: Liver cirrhosis is one of the most common causes of morbidity and mortality. The availability of liver transplant has stressed on the need for accurate prognostication. Various scoring systems have been developed for the same and studies have been conducted to find the correlation of various biochemical parameters with these.Methods: This is a cross sectional study conducted on 100 patients with stigmata of liver cell failure on clinical examination and substantiated by imaging. Serum Uric acid and other biochemical parameters were determined. Child Turcotte Pugh Score, Model for End Stage Liver Disease (MELD) score, United Kingdom Model for End Stage Liver Disease (UKELD) score was calculated and the correlation obtained.Results: The study showed significant, positive correlation between uric acid level and CTP, MELD and UKELD score. The study also showed the positive correlation of serum uric acid with various biochemical parameters such as total bilirubin, Prothrombin time/ International Normalized Ratio (PT/INR) and serum creatinine and negative correlation with serum albumin, with a significant p value. The mean serum uric acid was found to be 4.79(4.79± 2.0)Conclusions: The study showed a correlation between serum uric acid and the various available scoring systems such as CTP score, MELD and UKELD score. Hence serum uric acid can be used as an alternative prognostic parameter in predicting the severity and prognosis of cirrhosis of liver

Common variants in the HLA-DRB1-HLA-DQA1 HLA class II region are associated with susceptibility to visceral leishmaniasis

Pancreatitis occurs in approximately 4% of patients treated with the thiopurines azathioprine or mercaptopurine. Its development is unpredictable and almost always leads to drug withdrawal. We identified patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) who had developed pancreatitis within 3 months of starting these drugs from 168 sites around the world. After detailed case adjudication, we performed a genome-wide association study on 172 cases and 2,035 controls with IBD. We identified strong evidence of association within the class II HLA region, with the most significant association identified at rs2647087 (odds ratio 2.59, 95% confidence interval 2.07-3.26, P = 2 × 10(-16)). We replicated these findings in an independent set of 78 cases and 472 controls with IBD matched for drug exposure. Fine mapping of the HLA region identified association with the HLA-DQA1*02:01-HLA-DRB1*07:01 haplotype. Patients heterozygous at rs2647087 have a 9% risk of developing pancreatitis after administration of a thiopurine, whereas homozygotes have a 17% risk