These findings provide evidence for a functional dichotomy in patients with chronic HBV and HCV infections, featuring conserved or enhanced cytolytic activity and dysfunctional cytokine production, which may contribute to virus persistence.

No abstract

Transient elastography, real-time strain elastography, and aspartate-to-platelet ratio index values were correlated with histologic stages of fibrosis. Transient elastography offered excellent diagnostic performance in assessing severe fibrosis and cirrhosis. Real-time elastography does not yet have the potential to substitute for transient elastography in the assessment of liver fibrosis.

No abstract

The cut-off values of TE obtained in this single center study are comparable to that obtained in a recently published meta-analysis that included up to 40 studies.

Our results suggest for the first time that VR at week 8 could be considered a reliable predictor of SVR. Monitoring viral kinetics is useful for predicting the success of pegylated interferon and ribavirin therapy in children.

No abstract

Candidemia is an emerging problem among patients hospitalized in Internal Medicine Wards (IMW). We performed a retrospective study to assess the epidemiology, species distribution, antifungal susceptibility and outcome of candidaemia recorded over a 3-year period (2010)(2011)(2012) among IMW of community hospitals of Udine province in Italy: forty-eight patients were identified, with an overall incidence of 1.44 cases/1000 hospital admissions/year. Candida albicans was the most frequent species, followed by Candida parapsilosis that accounted for 42.9% of Tolmezzo cases. All isolates were susceptible to amphotericin and caspofungin, while 11.4% of strains were not-susceptible to voriconazole and 14.3% to fluconazole. Crude mortality was 41.7%. In conclusion, in community hospitals overall incidence of candidemia is similar to tertiary care hospitals, but 80% of cases are detected in IMW. Candida species distribution is overlapping, but differences in local epidemiology were found and should be taken into consideration. No resistance to amphotericin and caspofungin was found while resistance to azoles was observed. Knowledge of this data might be useful when planning the best therapeutic strategy.