Multicenter prospective validation of the Baveno IV and Baveno II/III criteria in cirrhosis patients with variceal bleeding

UNLABELLED: The criteria for defining failure to control bleeding in cirrhosis patients were introduced at the Baveno II/III meetings and were widely used as endpoints in clinical trials. Because they lacked specificity, the Baveno IV criteria were proposed in 2005 and slightly modified in 2010 (Baveno V). These criteria included a new index for patients undergoing transfusion, called adjusted-blood-requirement-index (ABRI=number of blood units/(final-initial hematocrit+0.01)), with a cutoff value of 0.75. In this multicenter prospective study, we sought to 1) validate the Baveno IV/V criteria; 2) compare them to the Baveno II/III criteria; 3) assess ABRI performance using a standardized calculation. The key inclusion criteria were: 1) variceal bleeding; 2) cirrhosis; 3) no need to modify the transfusion policy. The patients were classified according to the Baveno IV, V, and II/III criteria. The gold standard for failure during a 5-day period was the clinical judgment of three independent experts, blinded to the Baveno assessments. A total of 249 patients were included. The experts\u27 agreement in clinical judgment of the failure was 80%. Failure occurred in 20.5% of patients; the c-statistics were 0.72 versus 0.64 and 0.65 for Baveno IV versus Baveno II/III and Baveno V criteria (P=0.001 for both). ABRI did not improve the diagnostic performance of the Baveno IV criteria. The Baveno IV, but not Baveno II/III, criteria independently predicted survival. CONCLUSION: The Baveno IV criteria demonstrated a higher accuracy than the Baveno II/III and Baveno V criteria for assessing failure to control bleeding and predicted survival independently. Together, our results show that ABRI is not a useful metric, and the Baveno IV criteria should replace the Baveno II/III criteria

Diagnostic performance of FibroTest, SteatoTest and ActiTest in patients with NAFLD using the SAF score as histological reference

BACKGROUND: Blood tests of liver injury are less well validated in non‐alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) than in patients with chronic viral hepatitis. AIMS: To improve the validation of three blood tests used in NAFLD patients, FibroTest for fibrosis staging, SteatoTest for steatosis grading and ActiTest for inflammation activity grading. METHODS: We pre‐included new NAFLD patients with biopsy and blood tests from a single‐centre cohort (FibroFrance) and from the multicentre FLIP consortium. Contemporaneous biopsies were blindly assessed using the new steatosis, activity and fibrosis (SAF) score, which provides a reliable and reproducible diagnosis and grading/staging of the three elementary features of NAFLD (steatosis, inflammatory activity) and fibrosis with reduced interobserver variability. We used nonbinary‐ROC (NonBinAUROC) as the main endpoint to prevent spectrum effect and multiple testing. RESULTS: A total of 600 patients with reliable tests and biopsies were included. The mean NonBinAUROCs (95% CI) of tests were all significant (P < 0.0001): 0.878 (0.864–0.892) for FibroTest and fibrosis stages, 0.846 (0.830–0.862) for ActiTest and activity grades, and 0.822 (0.804–0.840) for SteatoTest and steatosis grades. FibroTest had a higher NonBinAUROC than BARD (0.836; 0.820–0.852; P = 0.0001), FIB4 (0.845; 0.829–0.861; P = 0.007) but not significantly different than the NAFLD score (0.866; 0.850–0.882; P = 0.26). FibroTest had a significant difference in median values between adjacent stage F2 and stage F1 contrarily to BARD, FIB4 and NAFLD scores (Bonferroni test P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: In patients with NAFLD, SteatoTest, ActiTest and FibroTest are non‐invasive tests that offer an alternative to biopsy, and they correlate with the simple grading/staging of the SAF scoring system across the three elementary features of NAFLD: steatosis, inflammatory activity and fibrosis

Authors' reply to Rozin and Quinn et al

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is the most common chronic inflammatory disease affecting about 1% of the white population, particularly female patients, and has considerable physical, psychological, and social repercussions.1 In a paper published previously in the Annals, Dadoniene et al described and compared two cohorts of patients with RA from Vilnius (Lithuania) and Oslo (Norway).2 There were no significant differences in sex, age, extra-articular manifestations, education, or family history of RA between the groups. None the less, there were important differences in disease activity, disability, pain, emotional, mental and general health, with patients in the Vilnius group having the worst scores. The number of patients who had never used a disease modifying antirheumatic drug (DMARD) was similar in both groups. Vilnius patients had more commonly used azathioprine, sulfasalazine, and antimalarial drugs, whereas Oslo patients had used methotrexate, gold salts, cyclosporin, and D-penicillamine. Surgery was more common in the Oslo patients. That study was developed to compare the evolution and outcomes of two different populations with RA and was the first to include health related quality of life. The authors attributed the differences between these groups to differences in economic status, medical care, drugs used and, to a lesser extent, genetic differences

Encéphalopathies métaboliques

International audienceMetabolic encephalopathies (ME) are a common cause of admission to emergency rooms, to hospitalization wards or to intensive care units. They could account for 10 to 20% of causes of comatose states in ICU and could be associated to a poor outcome especially in older patients. Nevertheless, they are often reversible and are associated with a favorable outcome when diagnosed and rapidly treated. They correspond to an altered brain functioning secondary to the deficiency of a substance that is mandatory for the normal brain functioning or to the accumulation of a substance that can be either endogenous or exogenous. It preferably occurs in co-morbid patients, complicating its diagnosis and its management. Altered brain functioning, going from mild neuropsychological impairment to coma, movement disorders especially myoclonus and the absence of any obvious differential diagnosis are highly suggestive of the diagnosis. Whereas some biological samplings and brain MRI are essential to rule out differential diagnosis, some others, such as electroencephalogram, may be able to propose important clues in favor of the diagnosis. Once simple symptomatic measures are introduced, the treatment consists mainly in the correction of the cause. Specific treatment options are only seldom available for ME; this is the case for hepatic encephalopathy and some drug-induced encephalopathies. We will successively describe in this review the main pathophysiological mechanisms, the main causes, favoring circumstances of ME, the differential diagnosis to rule out and the etiological work-up for the diagnosis. Finally, a diagnostic and therapeutic strategy for the care of patients with ME will be proposed.Les encéphalopathies métaboliques (EMtb) sont des causes fréquentes de recours au système de soins, via les urgences, l'hospitalisation et même la réanimation. Elles pourraient représenter jusqu'à 10 à 20 % des causes de coma en réanimation et compromettre le pronostic vital, notamment chez le sujet âgé. L'EMtb correspond à une altération du fonctionnement cérébral due à un déficit en une substance indispensable au métabolisme normal ou à l'accumulation d'une substance toxique que celle-ci soit endogène ou exogène. Elle survient préférentiellement chez des patients présentant des comorbidités, complexifiant ainsi son diagnostic et sa prise en charge. Son diagnostic clinique repose sur la survenue subaiguë de troubles des fonctions supérieures et de mouvements anormaux, myoclonies principalement, en l'absence de signe de localisation neurologique. Indispensables pour éliminer les diagnostics différentiels, certains examens complémentaires sont parfois en mesure d'apporter des arguments positifs en faveur du diagnostic. C'est le cas pour certains dosages biologiques, et l'électroencéphalogramme. Une fois les mesures symptomatiques simples mises en oeuvre à l'évocation du diagnostic, le traitement repose souvent sur le traitement de la cause. Seules certaines encéphalopathies métaboliques dont l'encéphalopathie hépatique bénéficient de prises en charge spécifiques. Nous décrirons successivement les principaux mécanismes physiopathologiques et les étiologies les plus fréquentes d'EMtb, les circonstances favorisantes, la présentation clinique, les diagnostics différentiels à éliminer, et les examens complémentaires utiles au diagnostic. Nous proposerons enfin une stratégie de prise en charge de l'EMtb