Response Factors to Pegylated Interferon-Alfa/Ribavirin Treatment in Chronic Hepatitis C Patients Genotype 1b

Hepatitis C virus infection is the most common chronic blood-borne infection and one of the most important causes of chronic liver disease. Knowing the predictors associated with pegylated interferon/ribavirin (PEG-IFN/RBV) combination therapy response is important for evidence-based treatment recommendations. The goal of this study was to identify host and viral factors of response to PEG-IFN/RBV treatment in chronic hepatitis C genotype 1b patients. We have examined the relationship between gender, age, level of alanine aminotransferase (ALT), viral load and liver fibrosis progression on therapy response. ALT level and viral load were evaluated before starting treatment with combination therapy. The elevated levels of ALT and route of HCV transmission were found to be significantly associated with the response to therapy in HCV-infected patients. Our findings may be useful for estimating a patients likelihood Of achieving sustained viral response

Apoptosis in Endomyocardial Biopsies from Patients with Dilated Cardiomyopathy

Apoptosis is an active energy-consuming mechanism of cell death, which may contribute to heart failure in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy. Dilated cardiomyopathy is a common clinical outcome of many prolonged cardiac insults, and therefore is considered as the most prevalent form of cardiomyopathy. Loss of heart mass is highly correlated with the heart failure and mortality, thus the purpose of this study was to define the apoptotic index in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy. Apoptosis was detected by the TUNEL method in 30 patients. Biopsies were obtained from the left ventricle, and at least three specimens were taken. TUNEL-positive cardiomyocytes were found in 26 of 30 cases (86.7 %) and the mean apoptotic index for the entire specimen series was 5.41 +/- 1.70 %. The analysis showed that patients with dilated cardiomyopathy had significantly higher apoptotic index (P LT 0.001) than healthy subjects. One subject (man, 41 years old) had a markedly elevated apoptotic index of 52.2 %. In the remaining subjects, the percentage of cardiomyocyte death ranged from 0 % to 15.5 %. The high percentage of apoptosis found in our study may be in accordance with the clinically manifested cardiac failure in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy since in most patients we recorded the left ventricular ejection fraction values below 30 %

Apoptosis in Endomyocardial Biopsies from Patients with Dilated Cardiomyopathy

Apoptosis is an active energy-consuming mechanism of cell death, which may contribute to heart failure in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy. Dilated cardiomyopathy is a common clinical outcome of many prolonged cardiac insults, and therefore is considered as the most prevalent form of cardiomyopathy. Loss of heart mass is highly correlated with the heart failure and mortality, thus the purpose of this study was to define the apoptotic index in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy. Apoptosis was detected by the TUNEL method in 30 patients. Biopsies were obtained from the left ventricle, and at least three specimens were taken. TUNEL-positive cardiomyocytes were found in 26 of 30 cases (86.7 %) and the mean apoptotic index for the entire specimen series was 5.41 +/- 1.70 %. The analysis showed that patients with dilated cardiomyopathy had significantly higher apoptotic index (P LT 0.001) than healthy subjects. One subject (man, 41 years old) had a markedly elevated apoptotic index of 52.2 %. In the remaining subjects, the percentage of cardiomyocyte death ranged from 0 % to 15.5 %. The high percentage of apoptosis found in our study may be in accordance with the clinically manifested cardiac failure in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy since in most patients we recorded the left ventricular ejection fraction values below 30 %

Structural, morphological and catalytic characterization of neutral Ag salt of 12-tungstophosphoric acid: Influence of preparation conditions

The objective of this study is the structural and morphological characterization of the Ag3PW12O40 salts (AgWPA) of 12-tungstophosphoric acid (WPA) obtained under different preparation conditions and testing of their acid catalytic activity in dehydration of ethanol. The structure, morphology and physicochemical characteristics were determined by Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) and Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), nitrogen physisorption at +/- 196 degrees C, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and differential thermal (DTA) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). It is shown that the preparation process has a significant influence on the morphological properties of the obtained materials which may be explained by the supposed mechanism of the formation of nanocrystallite's aggregates with more or less epitaxial connection. Neutral AgWPA obtained by filtration from supernatant forms porous aggregates of a symmetric dodecahedral shape, having average sizes about 2 mu m. This sample shows higher specific area in comparison with the salt obtained by evaporation due to the higher micropore volume, while mesopore volumes are the same for both salts. Thus conversion of ethanol and selectivities of the main products, ethylene and diethyl ether, are almost the same and constant for both prepared salts, while their values are changed over the reaction time for the parent WPA acid

Assessment of Hepatitis C Virus Protein Sequences with Regard to Interferon/Ribavirin Combination Therapy Response in Patients with HCV Genotype 1b

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a major and rising global health problem, affecting about 170 million people worldwide. The current standard of care treatment with interferon alpha and ribavirin in patients with the genotype 1 infection, the most frequent genotype in the USA and Western Europe, leads to a successful outcome in only about 50% of individuals. Accurate prediction of hepatitis C treatment response is of great benefit to patients and clinicians. The informational spectrum method, a virtual spectroscopy method for structure/function analysis of nucleotide and protein sequences, is applied here for the identification of the conserved information of the HCV proteins that correlate with the combination therapy outcome. Among the HCV proteins that we have analyzed the informational property of the p7 of HCV genotype 1b was best related to the therapy outcome. On the basis of these results, a simple bioinformatics criterion that could be useful in assessment of the response of HCV-infected patients to the combination therapy has been proposed