Does interferon and ribavirin combination therapy increase the rate of treatment response in children with hepatitis C?

Background: Interferon-alpha was the first accepted treatment of chronic hepatitis C. In recent years, adding ribavirin has produced better response rates in adult patients than monotherapy with interferon-alpha. Whether adding ribavirin also improves treatment results in pediatric patients remains unclear

Long-term outcome after sclerotherapy with or without a beta-blocker for variceal bleeding in children

Background : Esophageal variceal bleedingis a life-threatening complication of portal hypertension. Optimal treatmentfor the prophylaxis of variceal rebleeding in children has not yetbeen determined. In the present study, we aimed to compare the long-termefficacy of endoscopic sclerotherapy with or without oral beta-blockertherapy in the secondary prophylaxis of variceal bleeding

Zinc nutrition in children with chronic liver disease

Body zinc status of 13 pediatric patients with chronic liver disease was compared with controls, and the relation of the zinc status with the severity of the liver disease was investigated. Mean serum zinc level of the patients with chronic liver disease was significantly lower than mean serum zinc level of the controls (11.2 mu mol/L vs. 12.7 mu mol/L, P < 0.05). Seven patients had serum zinc levels below 10.7 mu mol/L, whereas all of the controls had higher values. When serum zinc levels were compared between patients with chronic active hepatitis (CAH) and chronic persistent hepatitis (CPH), CAH group had a significantly lower mean serum zinc level than the CPH group (9.6 mu mol/L vs. 12.3 mu mol/L, P < 0.05). Mean hair zinc level of the patients was higher than the mean hair zinc level of the controls; this difference was highly significant (218 mu g/g for patients vs. 91 mu g/g for controls, P < 0.001). Mean hair zinc level of the CPH group was 198.64 mu g/g, whereas CAH group had a mean hair zinc of 267.88 mu g/g, which is significantly higher (P < 0.05). The difference between mean urinary zinc excretion of the CAH and CPH groups was also statistically significant with 6.27 mu mol/day in the patients with CAH and 2.41 mu mol/day in the patients with CPH (P < 0.05). We conclude that serum zinc levels and body zinc turnover of the pediatric patients are decreased in chronic liver disease in association with the severity of hepatocellular injury, whereas urinary zinc excretion is increased in the more severe form of liver disease, and in this context, zinc supplementation is indispensable in chronic liver disease. J. Trace Elem. Exp. Med. 13:271-276, 2000. (C) 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc

Celiac disease and glycogenic acanthosis: a new association?

A 6-y-old boy and an 8-y-old girl were admitted to our clinic with anaemia and failure to thrive. Laboratory tests revealed iron deficiency anaemia and positive antigliadin antibodies in both of the patients. Slightly raised grey-white plaques were observed on oesophageal mucosa during endoscopical investigation of the patients. While intestinal mucosal samples confirmed diagnosis of celiac disease histologically, histopathological assessment of oesophageal lesions demonstrated glycogenic acanthosis. Since glycogenic acanthosis associated with celiac disease hasn't been reported in the literature previously to our knowledge, case reports of our patients were presented