Hepatic encephalopathy (HE) is a neurological disorder that occurs in patients with liver insufficiency. However, its pathogenesis has not been fully elucidated. Pharmacotherapy is the main therapeutic option for HE. It targets the pathogenesis of HE by reducing ammonia levels, improving neurotransmitter signal transduction, and modulating intestinal microbiota. Compared to healthy individuals, the intestinal microbiota of patients with liver disease is significantly different and is associated with the occurrence of HE. Moreover, intestinal microbiota is closely associated with multiple links in the pathogenesis of HE, including the theory of ammonia intoxication, bile acid circulation, GABA-ergic tone hypothesis, and neuroinflammation, which contribute to cognitive and motor disorders in patients. Restoring the homeostasis of intestinal bacteria or providing specific probiotics has significant effects on neurological disorders in HE. Therefore, this review aims at elucidating the potential microbial mechanisms and metabolic effects in the progression of HE through the gut–brain axis and its potential role as a therapeutic target in HE.
Background: This work was designed to establish and verify our nomograms integrating clinicopathological characteristics with hematological biomarkers to predict both disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) in solitary hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients following hepatectomy.Methods: We scrutinized the data retrospectively from 414 patients with a clinicopathological diagnosis of solitary HCC from Guangxi Medical University Cancer Hospital (Nanning, China) between January 2004 and December 2012. Following the random separation of the samples in a 7:3 ratio into the training set and validation set, the former set was assessed by Cox regression analysis to develop two nomograms to predict the 1-year and 3-year DFS and OS (3-years and 5-years). This was followed by discrimination and calibration estimation employing Harrell’s C-index (C-index) and calibration curves, while the internal validation was also assessed.Results: In the training cohort, the tumor diameter, tumor capsule, macrovascular invasion, and alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) were included in the DFS nomogram. Age, tumor diameter, tumor capsule, macrovascular invasion, microvascular invasion, and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) were included in the OS nomogram. The C-index was 0.691 (95% CI: 0.644-0.738) for the DFS-nomogram and 0.713 (95% CI: 0.670-0.756) for the OS-nomogram. The survival probability calibration curves displayed a fine agreement between the predicted and observed ranges in both data sets. Conclusion: Our nomograms combined clinicopathological features with hematological biomarkers to emerge effective in predicting the DFS and OS in solitary HCC patients following curative liver resection. Therefore, the potential utility of our nomograms for guiding individualized treatment clinically and monitor the recurrence monitoring in these patients.
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