Patients who received sleeve gastrectomy have lower plasma osteopontin levels than those who did not

Abstract Background: The aim of this study was to compare metabolic parameters, plasma Osteopontin (OPN) and Hepatocyte Growth Factor (HGF) levels between Sleeve Gastrectomy (SG) patients in their 6th post-operation month and healthy control patients. Methods: Height, weight, Body Mass Index (BMI) and laboratory parameters of 58 SG patients aged 18‒65 years (Group 1) and 46 healthy control patients (Group 2) were compared. In addition, preoperative and postoperative sixth-month BMI and laboratory parameters of the patients in Group 1 were compared. Results: The mean age and gender distributions of the groups were similar (p > 0.05). Mean BMI was 28.9 kg/m2 in Group 1 and 27 kg/m2 in Group 2 (p < 0.01). While plasma HGF levels were similar between both groups, plasma OPN levels were higher in Group 2 (p < 0.001). Fasting plasma glucose, total cholesterol, triglyceride, fasting plasma insulin and insulin resistance values were higher in Group 1, while alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase levels were higher in Group 2 (p < 0.05). There was a strong correlation between plasma HGF and OPN levels in Group 1, but not in Group 2 (Rho = 0.805, p < 0.001). Conclusion: OPN and HGF are promising biomarkers that can be used to better understand and detect problems related to obesity. The fact that patients in the early post-SG period had lower plasma OPN and similar plasma HGF compared to non-surgical patients of similar age and gender with higher BMI may be another favorable and previously unknown metabolic effect of SG.

Can pain during digital rectal examination help us to decide the necessity and the method of anesthesia for transrectal ultrasound guided prostate needle biopsy?

OBJECTIVE: Transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) guided prostate biopsy is well tolerated by patients but the lack of an effective marker to predict pain prevents us from determining pre-procedurally which patient group needs local anesthesia for biopsy and probe pain. Thus in this study, we investigated predictor factors for prostate biopsy and probe insertion pain. MATERIALS AND METHODS: 71 patients who were undergoing prostate biopsy without anesthesia were included in the study retrospectively. Pain had been assessed with visual analogue scale (VAS 0-10). Digital rectal examination (DRE) pain was analyzed for biopsy and probe insertion pain. RESULTS: DRE pain was related to both probe pain and biopsy pain. CONCLUSION: Although level of pain during DRE determines patients in need of local anesthesia, since the number of patients with moderate-severe pain is rather big, it seems efficient in determining the patients in need of additional anesthesia due to probe pain.