In intermediate HCC stage patients, both treatments resulted in similar survival probabilities despite more advanced disease in the TARE Y-90 group. Still, TARE Y-90 was better tolerated and associated with less hospitalization and treatment sessions.

HCC is a major health problem in Egypt and its incidence is increasing. The high prevalence of HCV infection makes screening programmes and surveillance of those patients a very important tool to early detect cases of small HCCs.

We did not find any difference in symptoms, endoscopic findings and histopathological results between patients with erosive and non-erosive OLP. However, the concomitant presence of erosive OLP, of H. pylori nucleic acid in erosive OLP and the H. pylori organisms in gastric mucosa implies a possible pathogenic connection between this bacterium and erosive OLP.

Liver disease causes millions of deaths per year worldwide, and approximately half of these cases are due to cirrhosis, which is an advanced stage of liver fibrosis that can be accompanied by liver failure and portal hypertension. Early detection of liver fibrosis helps in improving its treatment and prevents its progression to cirrhosis. In this work, we present a novel noninvasive method to detect liver fibrosis from tagged MRI images using a machine learning‐based approach. Specifically, coronal and sagittal tagged MRI imaging are analyzed separately to capture cardiac‐induced deformation of the liver. The liver is manually delineated and a novel image feature, namely, the histogram of the peak strain (HPS) value, is computed from the segmented liver region and is used to classify the liver as being either normal or fibrotic. Classification is achieved using a support vector machine algorithm. The in vivo study included 15 healthy volunteers (10 males; age range 30–45 years) and 22 patients (15 males; age range 25–50 years) with liver fibrosis verified and graded by transient elastography, and 10 patients only had a liver biopsy and were diagnosed with a score of F3‐F4. The proposed method demonstrates the usefulness and efficiency of extracting the HPS features from the sagittal slices for patients with moderate fibrosis. Cross‐validation of the method showed an accuracy of 83.7% (specificity = 86.6%, sensitivity = 81.8%).

Our data suggest that partial splenic arterial embolization leads to an increase in platelet count in patients with thrombocytopenia due to chronic liver disease and hypersplenism. However, it is often associated with complications.

BACKGROUND: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fi fth most common malignancy in the world. In Egypt, HCC was reported to account for about 4.7% of chronic liver disease (CLD) patients. Squamous cell carcinoma antigen (SCCA) has been reported to be strongly expressed in HCC tissue hampering its extensive use in clinical practice. AIM: To evaluate the clinical usefulness of serum SCCA levels as a serological marker for early detection of HCC among high-risk patients compared to AFP. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study comprised of three groups. Group A included 30 patients with CLD diagnosed based on clinical, laboratory, and ultrasonographical investigations; group B included 49 patients with HCC diagnostically confi rmed by spiral CT, elevated alfafetoprotein (AFP), and/or liver biopsy; and group C, the control group, included 15 healthy subjects matched for age and sex. All groups were subjected to thorough history taking, full clinical examination, and laboratory investigations including liver functions, viral markers, and AFP and SCCA estimation using ELISA technique. RESULTS: This study revealed a highly signifi cant difference between patients with HCC, CLD, and controls regarding serum SCCA levels (5.138 ± 7.689, 1.133 ± 0.516, and 0.787 ± 0.432 ng/ml, respectively). SCCA level was persistently elevated in patients with HCC with normal AFP levels representing its useful role in early detection and follow-up of patients treated for HCC. The area under the curve (AUC) of SCCA was 0.869 (95% CI 0.783-0.929), the cut-off value was established at 1.5 ng/ml with sensitivity of 77.6% and specifi city of 84.4%). The difference between AUC of SCCA and that of AFP was 0.09 which mounted statistical signifi cance. CONCLUSIONS: SCCA could represent a useful tool as a marker for detection of HCC.

No abstract

Introduction and Aim of the Work: The identification of cirrhotic patients with esophageal varices or other portosystemic collateral by non-invasive means is appealing in that it could decrease the necessity of endoscopic screening. This study was to evaluate the diagnostic utility of venous ammonia level with other ultrasonographic parameters as non-invasive markers for the presence of portosystemic shunts. Patients and methods: The study included 3 groups of Child Pugh class A and early B patients. Group (A): 25 patients with evidence of both esophageal varices and portosystemic collaterals; group (B) 25 patients with neither evidence of varices nor portosystemic collaterals and group (C): 25 patients with evidence of varices but no collaterals. Measurement of venous ammonia level was done for all patients. Results: serum ammonia level was significantly higher in group A (222.8 ± 54 μg/dL) than that in group B (85 ± 21.1 μg/dL) and group C (148.2 ± 19.6 μg/dL). The cutoff value of serum ammonia level 113 μg/dL was a good predictor for the presence of esophageal varices, while the cutoff value of serum ammonia level at 133 μg/dL was a good predictor for the presence of both esophageal varices and abdominal collaterals. Combination of portal vein diameter > 13mm + splenic vein diameter > 8.9mm + ammonia level > 133 μg/dL gives 100% of sensitivity and 96% of specificity for the prediction of the presence of portosystemic shunts. Conclusion: Determination of serum ammonia level, splenic, portal vein and M. F. Montasser et al. splenic vein diameters are considered as good predictors for the presence of portosystemic shunts in patients with liver cirrhosis.