Because of the high cost of treating type 2 diabetes and its complications, preventive measures should be implemented and control of the disease should be improved to reduce the costs associated with chronic complications.

On the basis of this work, we can conclude that high-resolution US is almost 100% effective as a tool for identifying the tibial nerve and its branches, enabling the specialist to make diagnoses or perform selective treatments on each nerve branch and even to design surgical interventions by observing the patient's anatomy before performing the dissection.

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Previous studies have found higher levels of serum malondialdehyde (MDA) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients compared to healthy controls and higher MDA concentrations in tumoral tissue of HCC patients than in non-tumoral tissue. However, the association between pre-transplant serum levels of MDA and survival in HCC patients after liver transplantation (LT) has not been described, and the aim of the present study was to determine whether such an association exists. In this observational study we measured serum MDA levels in 127 patients before LT. We found higher pre-LT serum MDA levels in 15 non-surviving than in 112 surviving patients one year after LT (p = 0.02). Exact binary logistic regression analysis revealed that pre-LT serum levels of MDA over 3.37 nmol/mL were associated with mortality after one year of LT (Odds ratio = 5.38; 95% confidence interval (CI) = from 1.580 to infinite; p = 0.007) adjusting for age of the deceased donor. The main finding of our study was that there is an association between serum MDA levels before LT for HCC and 1-year survival after LT.

Cytokeratin (CK)-18 is the major intermediate filament protein in the liver and during hepatocyte apoptosis is cleaved by the action of caspases; the resulting fragments are released into the blood as caspase-cleaved cytokeratin (CCCK)-18. Higher circulating levels of CCCK-18 have been found in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) than in healthy controls and than in cirrhotic patients. However, it is unknown whether serum CCCK-18 levels before liver transplantation (LT) in patients with HCC could be used as a prognostic biomarker of one-year survival, and this was the objective of our study with 135 patients. At one year after LT, non-survivors showed higher serum CCCK-18 levels than survivors (p = 0.001). On binary logistic regression analysis, serum CCCK-18 levels >384 U/L were associated with death at one year (odds ratio = 19.801; 95% confidence interval = 5.301-73.972; p < 0.001) after controlling for deceased donor age. The area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of serum CCCK-18 levels to predict death at one year was 77% (95% CI = 69%-84%; p < 0.001). The new finding of our study was that serum levels of CCCK-18 before LT in patients with HCC could be used as prognostic biomarker of survival.