Minerva medica
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We attempted to investigate non-invasive techniques and their diagnostic performances for evaluating clinically significant portal hypertension. ⋯ In future, non-invasive techniques could be the future choice of investigations for screening and diagnosis of clinically significant portal hypertension in cirrhosis. However, standardization of diagnostic indices and their cut-off values in each non-invasive method needs to be addressed.
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Comparative Study
Noninvasive assessment of liver fibrosis in chronic hepatitis C virus patients compared to liver biopsy: the experience of tertiary level hospital in Serbia.
Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, that is defined by active carriage of HCV RNA in the blood, is represents one of the major public health problems worldwide. In Serbia, the prevalence of anti-HCV positive persons in the general population, is estimated on average 1.13%. ⋯ Noninvasive liver fibrosis scores are efficient tools in the management and follow-up of HCV patients in clinical practice.
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Interferon signature (IS) is the measure of transcripts belonging to pathways of interferon activation. Viral infections can interfere with the interferon pathway, in particular herpesvirus present in immunocompromised hosts. The aim of our study was to evaluate if herpesvirus infections in immunocompromised patients with lower respiratory tract infections (LRTI) could lead to IS alterations. ⋯ The continuous stimulation of interferon cascade by herpesviruses enhances IS. The analysis of IS in immunocompromised population is possible by limiting the use of IFI27, IFIT1, ISG15 genes. Our preliminary results seem to indicate that IS is a useful biomarker of cellular response to herpesvirus infection in immunocompromised patients.