Background: We investigated associations between baseline use of immunosuppressive drugs and severity of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in autoimmune hepatitis (AIH). Patients and methods: Data of AIH patients with laboratory confirmed COVID-19 were retrospectively collected from 15 countries. The outcomes of AIH patients who were on immunosuppression at the time of COVID-19 were compared to patients who were not on AIH medication. The clinical courses of COVID-19 were classified as (i)-no hospitalization, (ii)-hospitalization without oxygen supplementation, (iii)hospitalization with oxygen supplementation by nasal cannula or mask, (iv)-intensive care unit (ICU) admission with non-invasive mechanical ventilation, (v)-ICU admission with invasive mechanical ventilation or (vi)-death and analysed using ordinal logistic regression. Results: We included 254 AIH patients (79.5%, female) with a median age of 50 (range, 17-85) years. At the onset of COVID-19, 234 patients (92.1%) were on treatment with glucocorticoids (n = 156), thiopurines (n = 151), mycophenolate mofetil (n = 22) or tacrolimus (n = 16), alone or in combinations. Overall, 94 (37%) patients were hospitalized and 18 (7.1%) patients died. Use of systemic glucocorticoids (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 4.73, 95% CI 1.12-25.89) and thiopurines (aOR 4.78, 95% CI 1.33-23.50) for AIH was associated with worse COVID-19 severity, after adjusting for age-sex, comorbidities and presence of cirrhosis. Baseline treatment with mycophenolate mofetil (aOR 3.56, 95% CI 0.76-20.56) and tacrolimus (aOR 4.09, 95% CI 0.69-27.00) were also associated with more severe COVID-19 courses in a smaller subset of treated patients. Conclusion: Baseline treatment with systemic glucocorticoids or thiopurines prior to the onset of COVID-19 was significantly associated with COVID-19 severity in patients with AIH.
We demonstrated that adding metformin to OCP treatment may have beneficial effect on FMD and CIMT that represent vascular function in patients with PCOS. These results suggest that adding metformin to OCP treatment for PCOS could preserve the cardiovascular system and improve it.
We demonstrated an improvement in the elastic parameters of the aorta by adding metformin to OCP treatment. We suggest that metformin plus OCP treatment may decrease cardiovascular disease risk in women with PCOS.
Ipilimumab is a monoclonal antibody that exerts its effects by inhibiting the cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein 4 receptor on cytotoxic T lymphocytes. It is frequently used for the treatment of unresectable or metastatic melanoma. Ipilimumab may lead to several immune-related disease including colitis, thyroiditis, pneumonia, hepatitis, or pancreatitis as a side effect. Limited number of cases with hepatic damage as an ipilimumab-related adverse event has been reported in the literature. This agent has been implicated in causing acute hepatitis-like liver injury. Here, we presented a case in which cholestatic hepatitis developed during ipilimumab use for the treatment of metastatic melanoma.
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