[Clinical and endoscopic prognostic factors in peptic ulcer bleeding]

Bleeding ulcer represent the most common cause of upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage. This study aims to evaluate the prognostic factors of recurrent bleeding and mortality in patients presenting with high risk of peptic ulcer bleeding. A cohort study with 88 patients was designed to investigate prognostic factors to the occurrence of new episodes of bleeding. Endoscopic hemostasis was performed in 32 cases [36%]. Recurrent bleeding and death occurred in 30 [34, 1%] and 3 cases [3, 4%] respectively. The predictors factors of rebleeding were hypovolemia at admission and the localization of the ulcer in bulb. The only predictor factor of death was the anticoagulant therapy. The identification of patients with risk of death by bleeding peptic ulcer remains as a challenge, once few factors are capable of predicting the severity of the evolution. The identification of such factors will allow the choice of the better therapeutic conduct improving the diagnosis and decreasing the rate of rebleeding and the mortality

[Intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy]

Intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy is a pregnancy specific hepatic disorder. It occurs mainly in the third trimester of pregnancy by pruritus and elevated serum levels of aminotransferases and total bile acid which completly regresses few days or weeks after delivery. Intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy is regarded as a benign disease with meaningful consequences to the mother but associated to increased perinatal risk with increased rates of preterm birth and perinatal mortality. The pathogenesis of disease is unclear yet but likely involves a genetic hypersensitivity to estrogen or progesteron metabolites. Treatment is focused on reducing symptoms in mother and to provide an adequate obstetric management in order to prevent fetal distress. Currently, only ursodeoxycholic acid treatment has been proven to be useful and safe and should be the first choice treatment