Interleukin 28 polymorphisms and hepatocellular carcinoma development after direct acting antiviral therapy for chronihepatitis c

Background & Aims: Cirrhotic patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection remain at risk of developing hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) even after the sustained virologic response (SVR). We aimed to evaluate whether the IL28 (rs12979860) single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) may constitute a predisposing genetic factor and to identify the SVR patients at risk of HCC. Methods: Two hundred patients undergoing DAAs treatment for chronic hepatitis C with advanced fibrosis (F3-F4) were consecutively enrolled. Besides normal routine laboratory testing for HCV, patients’ sera were evaluated also for retinol, retinol-binding protein 4 and the following SNPs: PNPLA3 (rs738409), TM6SF2 (rs58542926), MBOAT7 (rs641738), IL28B (rs12979860), TIMP-1 (rs4898), TIMP-2 (rs8179090), NF-kB promoter (rs28362491). Statistical analyses were conducted using Stata/SE 14.2 statistical software (Stata Corp, College Station, TX). Results: Almost all patients (197/200) obtained SVR24. Seventeen patients had a previous history of treated HCC before DAAs. Six patients developed HCC recurrence and five patients developed de novo HCC after a mean period of 18 months since EOT. All these patients had SVR. A significant association between IL28B – TT genotype and HCC development after DAAs therapy was observed (OR 4.728, CI 95% 1.222 – 18.297, p=0.024). Conclusion: IL28B rs12979860 polymorphism was significantly associated with HCC development after DAAs. Assessment of this SNP may better identify patients at risk of developing HCC after treatment. Further prospective studies are required to confirm these hypotheses

Pain and Frailty in Hospitalized Older Adults

Introduction: Pain and frailty are prevalent conditions in the older population. Many chronic diseases are likely involved in their origin, and both have a negative impact on quality of life. However, few studies have analysed their association. Methods: In light of this knowledge gap, 3577 acutely hospitalized patients 65 years or older enrolled in the REPOSI register, an Italian network of internal medicine and geriatric hospital wards, were assessed to calculate the frailty index (FI). The impact of pain and some of its characteristics on the degree of frailty was evaluated using an ordinal logistic regression model after adjusting for age and gender. Results: The prevalence of pain was 24.7%, and among patients with pain, 42.9% was regarded as chronic pain. Chronic pain was associated with severe frailty (OR = 1.69, 95% CI 1.38–2.07). Somatic pain (OR = 1.59, 95% CI 1.23–2.07) and widespread pain (OR = 1.60, 95% CI 0.93–2.78) were associated with frailty. Osteoarthritis was the most common cause of chronic pain, diagnosed in 157 patients (33.5%). Polymyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis and other musculoskeletal diseases causing chronic pain were associated with a lower degree of frailty than osteoarthritis (OR = 0.49, 95%CI 0.28–0.85). Conclusions: Chronic and somatic pain negatively affect the degree of frailty. The duration and type of pain, as well as the underlying diseases associated with chronic pain, should be evaluated to improve the hospital management of frail older people

The multifaceted spectrum of liver cirrhosis in older hospitalised patients: Analysis of the REPOSI registry

Background: Knowledge on the main clinical and prognostic characteristics of older multimorbid subjects with liver cirrhosis (LC) admitted to acute medical wards is scarce. Objectives: To estimate the prevalence of LC among older patients admitted to acute medical wards and to assess the main clinical characteristics of LC along with its association with major clinical outcomes and to explore the possibility that well-distinguished phenotypic profiles of LC have classificatory and prognostic properties. Methods: A cohort of 6,193 older subjects hospitalised between 2010 and 2018 and included in the REPOSI registry was analysed. Results: LC was diagnosed in 315 patients (5%). LC was associated with rehospitalisation (age-sex adjusted hazard ratio, [aHR] 1.44; 95% CI, 1.10-1.88) and with mortality after discharge, independently of all confounders (multiple aHR, 2.1; 95% CI, 1.37-3.22), but not with in-hospital mortality and incident disability. Three main clinical phenotypes of LC patients were recognised: relatively fit subjects (FIT, N = 150), subjects characterised by poor social support (PSS, N = 89) and, finally, subjects with disability and multimorbidity (D&M, N = 76). PSS subjects had an increased incident disability (35% vs 13%, P < 0.05) compared to FIT. D&M patients had a higher mortality (in-hospital: 12% vs 3%/1%, P < 0.01; post-discharge: 41% vs 12%/15%, P < 0.01) and less rehospitalisation (10% vs 32%/34%, P < 0.01) compared to PSS and FIT. Conclusions: LC has a relatively low prevalence in older hospitalised subjects but, when present, accounts for worse post-discharge outcomes. Phenotypic analysis unravelled the heterogeneity of LC older population and the association of selected phenotypes with different clinical and prognostic features

Alignment of the ALICE Inner Tracking System with cosmic-ray tracks

37 pages, 15 figures, revised version, accepted by JINSTALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) is the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) experiment devoted to investigating the strongly interacting matter created in nucleus-nucleus collisions at the LHC energies. The ALICE ITS, Inner Tracking System, consists of six cylindrical layers of silicon detectors with three different technologies; in the outward direction: two layers of pixel detectors, two layers each of drift, and strip detectors. The number of parameters to be determined in the spatial alignment of the 2198 sensor modules of the ITS is about 13,000. The target alignment precision is well below 10 micron in some cases (pixels). The sources of alignment information include survey measurements, and the reconstructed tracks from cosmic rays and from proton-proton collisions. The main track-based alignment method uses the Millepede global approach. An iterative local method was developed and used as well. We present the results obtained for the ITS alignment using about 10^5 charged tracks from cosmic rays that have been collected during summer 2008, with the ALICE solenoidal magnet switched off.Peer reviewe

Transverse momentum spectra of charged particles in proton-proton collisions at s=900\sqrt{s} = 900 GeV with ALICE at the LHC

The inclusive charged particle transverse momentum distribution is measured in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s} = 900$ GeV at the LHC using the ALICE detector. The measurement is performed in the central pseudorapidity region $(|\eta|<0.8)$ over the transverse momentum range $0.15<p_{\rm T}<10$ GeV/$c$. The correlation between transverse momentum and particle multiplicity is also studied. Results are presented for inelastic (INEL) and non-single-diffractive (NSD) events. The average transverse momentum for $|\eta|<0.8$ is $\left<p_{\rm T}\right>_{\rm INEL}=0.483\pm0.001$ (stat.) $\pm0.007$ (syst.) GeV/$c$ and \left_{\rm NSD}=0.489\pm0.001 (stat.) $\pm0.007$ (syst.) GeV/$c$, respectively. The data exhibit a slightly larger $\left<p_{\rm T}\right>$ than measurements in wider pseudorapidity intervals. The results are compared to simulations with the Monte Carlo event generators PYTHIA and PHOJET.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables, published version, figures at http://aliceinfo.cern.ch/ArtSubmission/node/390

Studies of jet mass in dijet and W/Z plus jet events

This is the pre-print version of the final published paper that is available from the link below.Invariant mass spectra for jets reconstructed using the anti-kT and Cambridge-Aachen algorithms are studied for different jet “grooming” techniques in data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5 fb-1, recorded with the CMS detector in proton-proton collisions at the LHC at a center-of-mass energy of 7TeV. Leading-order QCD predictions for inclusive dijet and W/Z+jet production combined with parton-shower Monte Carlo models are found to agree overall with the data, and the agreement improves with the implementation of jet grooming methods used to distinguish merged jets of large transverse momentum from softer QCD gluon radiation