Prucalopride in intestinal pseudo obstruction, paediatric experience and systematic review

BACKGROUND

Intestinal pseudo obstruction both acute and chronic is an uncommon severe motility disorder that affect both children and adults, can lead to significant morbidity burden and have no standard management strategy. Prucalopride a highly selective serotonin receptor agonist is an effective laxative with reported extra colon action. We aim to report our experience in children with acute and chronic intestinal pseudo obstruction who responded to prucalopride and systemically review the use of prucalopride in intestinal pseudo obstruction.

METHODS

A report of clinical experience and systemic review of the relevant medical databases to identify the outcome of usage of prucalopride in patients with acute and chronic intestinal pseudo obstruction. Studies meeting the selection criteria were reviewed including abstract only and case reports.

RESULTS

All reported cases showed clinical response to prucalopride. There were three full text, two abstracts only and three case reports all reporting clinical improvement with prucalopride.

CONCLUSION

Prucalopride appears to show promising results in children and adults with acute and chronic intestinal pseudo obstruction.

Colonoscopy procedural volume increases adenoma and polyp detection rates in gastroenterologytrainees

AIM

To investigate changes in polyp detection throughout fellowship training, and estimate colonoscopy volume required to achieve the adenoma detection rate (ADRs) and polyp detection rate (PDRs) of attending gastroenterologists.

METHODS

We reviewed colonoscopies from July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2014. Fellows’ procedural logs were used to retrieve colonoscopy procedural volumes, and these were treated as the time variable. Findings from screening colonoscopies were used to calculate colonoscopy outcomes for each fellow for the prior 50 colonoscopies at each time point. ADR and PDR were plotted against colonoscopy procedural volumes to produce individual longitudinal graphs. Repeated measures linear mixed effects models were used to study the change of ADR and PDR with increasing procedural volume.

RESULTS

During the study period, 12 fellows completed full three years of training and were included in the analysis. The average ADR and PDR were, respectively, 31.5% and 41.9% for all fellows, and 28.9% and 38.2% for attendings alone. There was a statistically significant increase in ADR with increasing procedural volume (1.8%/100 colonoscopies, P = 0.002). Similarly, PDR increased 2.8%/100 colonoscopies (P = 0.0001), while there was no significant change in advanced ADR (0.04%/100 colonoscopies, P = 0.92). The ADR increase was limited to the right side of the colon, while the PDR increased in both the right and left colon. The adenoma per colon and polyp per colon also increased throughout training. Fellows reached the attendings’ ADR and PDR after 265 and 292 colonoscopies, respectively.

CONCLUSION

We found that the ADR and PDR increase with increasing colonoscopy volume throughout fellowship. Our findings support recent recommendations of ≥ 275 colonoscopies for colonoscopy credentialing.

Treatment of HCV infection in liver transplant recipients with ledipasvir and sofosbuvir without ribavirin

BACKGROUND

Ledipasvir and sofosbuvir is a well-tolerated regimen with high sustained virological response (SVR) rates in pre-liver transplant patients infected with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV), but data in liver transplant recipients outside of clinical trials is limited.

AIM

To address this knowledge gap and assess SVR rates without the use of ribavirin in liver transplant recipients METHODS: This is a retrospective study examining the treatment of 75 post-liver transplant recipients with ledipasvir and sofosbuvir without ribavirin. Differences between SVR cohorts and predictors of SVR were analysed in an intention-to-treat (ITT) fashion.

RESULTS

A total of 408 genotype 1, HCV patients were treated with ledipasvir/sofosbuvir from October 2014 to August 2015 at our centre. Seventy-three patients were post-liver transplant and were treated with a median of 2.9 years from transplant. Ledipasvir/sofosbuvir achieved an SVR12 of 95.9%. African Americans made up 28.8% of the cohort. Sixty-three per cent of patients were treated previously, including 13.7% of patients previously treated with direct-acting antivirals. Only 2.7% had recurrent allograft cirrhosis, and the majority (90.4%) was on calcineurin inhibitor based immunosuppressive therapy. Approximately 82% of patients had chronic kidney disease (CKD) stage 2 or 3. In univariate logistic regression, only detectable week 8 viral load was predictive of failure to achieve SVR.

CONCLUSION

Our data confirm excellent SVR outcomes and favourable safety and tolerability profiles with ledipasvir/sofosbuvir without ribavirin in post-liver transplant recipients infected with HCV, despite treatment guidelines to use ribavirin.

Systematic review of radioguided surgery for non-palpable breast cancer

BACKGROUND

This systematic review examines whether radioguided localization surgery (RGL) (radioguided occult lesion localization - ROLL and radioguided seed localization - RSL) for non-palpable breast cancer lesions produces lower positive margin rates than standard wire-guided localization surgery.

METHODS

We performed a comprehensive literature review to identify clinical studies using either ROLL or RSL. Included studies examined invasive or in situ BC and reported pathologically assessed margin status or specimen volume/weight. Two reviewers independently assessed study eligibility and quality and abstracted relevant data on patient and surgical outcomes. Quantitative data analyses were performed.

RESULTS

Fifty-two clinical studies on ROLL (n = 46) and RSL (n = 6) were identified. Twenty-seven met our inclusion criteria: 12 studies compared RGL to WGL and 15 studies were single cohorts using RGL. Ten studies were included in the quantitative analyses. Data for margin status and re-operation rates from 4 randomized controlled trials (RCT; n = 238) and 6 cohort studies were combined giving a combined odds ratio (OR) of 0.367 and 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.277 to 0.487 (p < 0.001) for margins status and OR 0.347, 95% CI: 0.250 to 0.481 (p < 0.001) for re-operation rates.

CONCLUSIONS

The results of this systematic review of RGL versus WGL demonstrate that RGL technique produces lower positive margins rates and fewer re-operations. While this review is limited by the small size and quality of RCTs, the odds ratios suggest that RGL may be a superior technique to guide surgical resection of non-palpable breast cancers. These results should be confirmed by larger, multi-centered RCTs.

A clinical study assessing the tolerability and biological effects of infliximab, a TNF-alpha inhibitor, in patients with advanced cancer

BACKGROUND

Tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) is an important regulator of the chronic inflammation contributing to tumour progression. Infliximab, an anti-TNF-alpha monoclonal antibody was investigated in this trial of patients with advanced cancer. The primary objectives were to determine the safety profile and biological response of infliximab in a cancer population. Clinical response was a secondary objective.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

Forty-one patients received infliximab at 5 mg/kg (n = 21) or 10 mg/kg (n = 20) i.v. at 0 and 2 weeks and then every 4 weeks. Post-treatment samples were measured for changes in plasma and serum TNF-alpha, CCL2, IL-6 and C-reactive protein (CRP).

RESULTS

Infliximab was well tolerated with no dose-limiting toxic effects. At both doses of infliximab, neutralisation of serum TNF-alpha was observed after 1 h while plasma CCL2, IL-6 and serum CRP were decreased 24 and 48 h following infliximab administration. Seven patients experienced disease stablisation (range 10-50+ weeks). There was no evidence of disease acceleration in any patient.

CONCLUSIONS

Infliximab treatment was safe and well tolerated in patients with advanced cancer. There was evidence of biological activity with baseline TNF-alpha and CCL2 being correlated with infliximab response.

An issue of access: delivering equitable health care for newly arrived refugee children in Australia

Newly arrived refugees and asylum seekers are faced with many difficulties in accessing effective health care when settling in Australia. Cultural, language and financial constraints, lack of awareness of available services, and lack of health provider understanding of the complex health concerns of refugees can all contribute to limiting access to health care. Understanding the complexities of a new health care system under these circumstances and finding a regular health provider may be difficult. In some cases there may be a fundamental distrust of government services. The different levels of health entitlements by visa category and (for some) detention on arrival in Australia may further complicate the provision and use of health services for providers and patients. Children are particularly at risk of suboptimal health care due to the impact of these factors combined with the effect of resettlement stresses on parents' ability to care for their children. Unaccompanied and separated children, and those in detention experience additional challenges in accessing care. This article aims to increase awareness among health professionals caring for refugee children of the challenges faced by this group in accessing and receiving effective health care in Australia. Particular consideration is given to the issues of equity, rights of asylum seekers, communication and cultural sensitivities in health care provision, and addressing barriers to health care. The aim of the paper is to alert practitioners to the complex issues surrounding the delivery of health care to refugee children and provide realistic recommendations to guide practice.

ASP514 within the A1 domain of bovine von Willebrand factor is required for interaction with platelet glycoprotein Ib

A mutant PAD-1 (D514-->Q) of the recombinant fragment PAD-1 comprising Leu469-Ser723 of the A1 domain of bovine von Willebrand factor (vWF) neither inhibited the binding of [125I]vWF to platelets nor the agglutination of human platelets induced by bovine vWF. PAD-1, on the other hand, inhibited human platelet agglutination induced by bovine vWF and [125I]vWF binding to human platelets. Collagen binding properties of the mutant, however, were indistinguishable from those of PAD-1. These results suggested that Asp514 within the A1 domain of vWF is required for interaction of bovine vWF with GPIb receptor on human platelets.

Ligand binding assays with recombinant proteins refolded on an affinity matrix

This paper describes a procedure for performing ligand binding assays with recombinant proteins or protein fragments that can bind to an affinity matrix in the presence or absence of a denaturing agent but which require the presence of the denaturing agent to remain in solution. The method involves coupling of a known amount of the protein in a denaturing medium to a known amount of the affinity matrix, replacing the denaturing agent with a physiological buffer, and finally using the suspension of this protein-coupled matrix as the source of the recombinant protein to be studied for its functional properties. A constant volume of this suspension is incubated with different concentrations of a radiolabeled ligand. Radioactivity bound to the protein-coupled affinity matrix is determined after centrifugation and washing of the pellet. Nonspecific binding is determined either by using the uncoupled affinity matrix or by the standard technique of measuring the binding in the presence of excess unlabeled ligand.