CT can help distinguish benign from malignant causes of nontraumatic AVC.

Background and ObjectivesIron overload among hemodialysis patients was previously considered rare but is now an increasingly recognized clinical situation. We analyzed correlations between iron biomarkers and the liver iron concentration (LIC) measured by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and examined their diagnostic accuracy for iron overload.Design, Setting, Participants and MeasurementsWe performed a prospective cross-sectional study from 31 January 2005 to 31 August 2013 in the dialysis centre of a French community-based private hospital. A cohort of 212 hemodialysis patients free of overt inflammation or malnutrition, were treated for anemia with parenteral iron-sucrose and an erythropoesis-stimulating agent, in keeping with current clinical guidelines. Blinded measurements of hepatic iron stores were performed by T1 and T2* contrast MRI, and relationships were analysed using Spearman’s coefficient, logistic regression and receiver-operator characteristic (ROC) curves.ResultsAmong the biological markers, only serum ferritin showed a strong correlation with LIC (rho= 0.52, 95% CI: 0.41-0.61, p< 0.0001, Spearman test). In logistic analysis, only serum ferritin correctly classified the overall cohort into patients with normal liver iron stores (LIC ≤ 50 μmol/g) and those with elevated liver iron stores (LIC > 50 μmol/g) (odds ratio 1.007; 95% CI: 1.004-1.010). Serum ferritin was the iron biomarker with the best discriminatory capacity in ROC curves analysis (area under the curve (AUC) = 0.767; 95% CI: 0.698-0.835). The optimal serum ferritin cutoffs were 160 μg/L for LIC > 50 μmol/g (mild iron overload) and 290 μg/L for LIC > 200 μmol/g (severe iron overload).ConclusionsFor clinical purposes, serum ferritin correctly reflects liver iron stores, as assessed by MRI, in hemodialysis patients without overt inflammation or malnutrition. These results strongly suggest that current ferritin target values should be lowered to avoid iron overload.Trial RegistrationISRCTN Registry 80100088

Background and ObjectivesIron overload used to be considered rare among hemodialysis patients after the advent of erythropoesis-stimulating agents, but recent MRI studies have challenged this view. The aim of this study, based on decision-tree learning and on MRI determination of hepatic iron content, was to identify a noxious pattern of parenteral iron administration in hemodialysis patients.Design, Setting, Participants and MeasurementsWe performed a prospective cross-sectional study from 31 January 2005 to 31 August 2013 in the dialysis centre of a French community-based private hospital. A cohort of 199 fit hemodialysis patients free of overt inflammation and malnutrition were treated for anemia with parenteral iron-sucrose and an erythropoesis-stimulating agent (darbepoetin), in keeping with current clinical guidelines. Patients had blinded measurements of hepatic iron stores by means of T1 and T2* contrast MRI, without gadolinium, together with CHi-squared Automatic Interaction Detection (CHAID) analysis.ResultsThe CHAID algorithm first split the patients according to their monthly infused iron dose, with a single cutoff of 250 mg/month. In the node comprising the 88 hemodialysis patients who received more than 250 mg/month of IV iron, 78 patients had iron overload on MRI (88.6%, 95% CI: 80% to 93%). The odds ratio for hepatic iron overload on MRI was 3.9 (95% CI: 1.81 to 8.4) with >250 mg/month of IV iron as compared to <250 mg/month. Age, gender (female sex) and the hepcidin level also influenced liver iron content on MRI.ConclusionsThe standard maximal amount of iron infused per month should be lowered to 250 mg in order to lessen the risk of dialysis iron overload and to allow safer use of parenteral iron products.

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