The Banff Working Group on Liver Allograft Pathology reviewed and discussed literature evidence regarding antibody-mediated liver allograft rejection at the 11th (Paris, France, June 5-10, 2011), 12th (Comandatuba, Brazil, August 19-23, 2013), and 13th (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, October 5-10, 2015) meetings of the Banff Conference on Allograft Pathology. Discussion continued online. The primary goal was to introduce guidelines and consensus criteria for the diagnosis of liver allograft antibody-mediated rejection and provide a comprehensive update of all Banff Schema recommendations. Included are new recommendations for complement component 4d tissue staining and interpretation, staging liver allograft fibrosis, and findings related to immunosuppression minimization. In an effort to create a single reference document, previous unchanged criteria are also included.

(Abstracted from Lancet 2018;392:2697–2704) Infertility is common and affects about 10% to 15% of couples. In such couples, 1 in 500 women has infertility due to uterine causes, with uterine agenesis (Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser [MRKH] syndrome), or due to hysterectomy, malformation, or the sequelae of infection or surgery.

Extracellular matrix (ECM) composition has an important role in determining airway structure. We postulated that ECM lung composition of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients differs from that observed in smoking and nonsmoking subjects without airflow obstruction.We determined the fractional areas of elastic fibres, type-I, -III and -IV collagen, versican, decorin, biglycan, lumican, fibronectin and tenascin in different compartments of the large and small airways and lung parenchyma in 26 COPD patients, 26 smokers without COPD and 16 nonsmoking control subjects.The fractional area of elastic fibres was higher in non-obstructed smokers than in COPD and nonsmoking controls, in all lung compartments. Type-I collagen fractional area was lower in the large and small airways of COPD patients and in the small airways of non-obstructed smokers than in nonsmokers. Compared with nonsmokers, COPD patients had lower versican fractional area in the parenchyma, higher fibronectin fractional area in small airways and higher tenascin fractional area in large and small airways compartments. In COPD patients, significant correlations were found between elastic fibres and fibronectin and lung function parameters.Alterations of the major ECM components are widespread in all lung compartments of patients with COPD and may contribute to persistent airflow obstruction.

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Background and study aims  Biliary strictures are frequently a challenging clinical scenario and the anatomopathological diagnosis is essential in the therapeutic management, whether for curative or palliative purposes. The acquisition of specimens is necessary since many benign diseases mimic biliopancreatic neoplasms. Endscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) is the traditionally used method despite the low sensitivity of biliary brush cytology and forceps biopsy. On the other hand, several studies reported good accuracy rates using endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine-needle aspiration (EUS-FNA). The aim of this prospective study was to compare, the accuracy of EUS-FNA and ERCP for tissue sampling of biliary strictures. Patients and methods  After performing the sample size calculation, 50 consecutive patients with indeterminate biliary strictures were included to undergo ERCP and EUS on the same sedation.The gold-standard was surgery or 6 months’ follow-up. Evaluation of the diagnostic indices (sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive value, positive and negative likelihood ratio), concordance and adverse events among the methods were performed. Also, subtype analyses of the techniques, anatomical localization and size of the lesion were included. Results  The final diagnoses reported in 50 patients were 47 malignant, 1 suspicious and 2 benign lesions. 31 lesions were extraductal and 19 intraductal, 35 were distal and 15 proximal strictures. In the intention-to-treat analysis, the sensitivity and accuracy of EUS-FNA were superior than ERCP tissue sampling (93,8 %, 94 % vs. 60,4 %, 62 %, respectively) ( P  = 0.034), with similar adverse events. There was no concordance between the methods and combining both methods improved the sensitivity and accuracy for 97.9 % and 98 %, respectively. In the subtype analyses, the EUS-FNA was superior, with a higher accuracy than ERCP tissue sampling in evaluating extraductal lesions (100 % vs. 54.8 %, P  = 0.019) and in those larger than 1.5 cm (95.8 % vs. 61.9 %, P  = 0.031), but were similar in evaluating intraductal lesions and lesions smaller than 1.5 cm. There was no significant difference between the methods in the analyzes of proximal, distal and pancreatic lesions. Conclusion  EUS-FNA is better than ERCP with brush cytology and intraductal forceps biopsy in diagnosing malignant biliary strictures, mainly in the assessment of extraductal lesions and in those larger than 1.5 cm. Combining ERCP with tissue sampling and EUS-FNA is feasible, the techniques have similar complication rates, and the combination greatly improves diagnostic accuracy.