ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Acute gastric variceal bleeding (AGVB) is a potentially fatal consequence of portal hypertension, accounting for 10% to 30% of all variceal bleeding. Although endoscopic cyanoacrylate glue injection is a common treatment for acute hemostasis, it has been linked to significant side effects. In the treatment of AGVB, there is limited evidence of the efficacy and relative safety of endoscopic human thrombin injection over glue injection. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 52 AGVB patients were randomized to receive either thrombin injection (25 patients) or glue injection (27 patients). The primary outcome was the incidence of any glue or thrombin injection-related post-therapy complications. Initial hemostasis, rebleeding, and mortality were all secondary end goals. RESULTS: Both groups had comparable baseline data. Hemostasis of active bleeding at endoscopy was 100.0% (10/10) in the thrombin group and 87.5% (7/8) in the glue group (P=0.44). Treatment failure after 5 days occurred in 2 patients (6.1%) in the glue group compared with none in the thrombin group (P=0.165). Between 6 and 42 days after index bleeding, rebleeding occurred in 4 patients in the thrombin group compared with 6 patients in the glue group (P=0.728). In the thrombin group, none of the patients had post-treatment ulcers on gastric varices compared with 14.81% (4/27) that occurred in the glue group (P=0.045), a statistically significant observation. Overall, complications occurred in 4 (20%) and 11 (40.7%) patients in the thrombin and glue groups, respectively (P=0.105). Two patients in the glue group died. CONCLUSION: To achieve successful AGVB hemostasis, endoscopic thrombin injection has been proven efficacious. However, glue injection may be linked to a higher rate of rebleeding and post-therapy gastric variceal ulceration compared with thrombin.
ABSTRACT
Background Psychiatric disorders, particularly depression is prevalent among patients with tuberculosis (TB) and affect their treatment compliance. Patients with tuberculosis can develop depression due to multiple factors like longer treatment duration, social stigma, lack of family support, etc. In this study, depression and its associated factors were examined among patients with tuberculosis enrolled in a directly observed treatment short-course (DOTS) center in North Delhi. Methods In this DOTS center-based, cross-sectional study, 320 patients with pulmonary and extra-pulmonary TB above 18 years old were included. Basic socio-demographic information was gathered using a Hindi questionnaire, and depression was identified using the patient health questionnaire-9. People who received a score of 10 or higher were deemed to have depression. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA) was used for data analysis. Analysis between depression and no-depression groups was done by the chi-square test and a p-value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results The study involved 320 patients in all, 193 (60.3%) of whom were men. The median age was 38 years, and the interquartile range (IQR) was 24 to 52 years. Depression was found to be present in half of the patients. Patients with a higher proportion of depression were male, belonged to the middle or below socio-economic status, were currently unemployed and literate, had monthly family income less than 8000 rupees, weight below 45 kg, used alcohol and tobacco, and were undergoing intensive phase (IP) of TB treatment (p-value< 0.05). Depression was not found to be associated with age, site of TB, previous history of anti-tubercular treatment (ATT) intake, marital status, and family size. Conclusion Depression among patients with TB is common and affects half of the patients afflicted with it. When evaluating patients with TB, physicians and DOTS providers should have a high index of suspicion for depression.
ABSTRACT
Malnutrition is very common in liver disease patients. The nutrition status of chronic hepatitis C infected patients was assessed in those with both compensated and decompensated liver disease. A prospective non-interventional observational study was conducted in a tertiary care hospital among patients attending the liver clinic under medicine Outpatient Department (OPD), with follow-up till six months since recruitment. A total number of 100 recruited eligible patients was divided into two groups of 50 patients each, one comprised of subjects with decompensated liver disease and the other one with compensated liver disease. Out of the 100 participants, 85% were males, with the majority of them being aged between 41 and 50 years, and underweight. At every visit, low mean values in triceps thickness and mid-arm circumference were observed among patients with decompensated liver disease compared to those with compensated liver disease, which had a significant difference statistically. The clinical symptoms and severe malnutrition were found to be higher and significantly statistically associated with the decompensated liver disease patients.
