Lipoatrophy, a rare complication of diabetes: a single-center experience.

BACKGROUND: Lipoatrophy (LA), a rare skin complication in patients with type 1 diabetes (T1D), has decreased dramatically over the past decades due to the use of human purified insulin preparations. METHODS: We collected data from the records of T1D patients with LA. Types of insulin and insulin regimen, presence of eosinophilia, anti-insulin (IAA), anti-GAD, anti-IA2 autoantibodies, other autoimmune disorders, site of atrophy and its relationship to catheter, HbA1c at LA onset and after resolution, and different treatment modalities (i.e., change of insulin type or site, sodium cromoglycate (SCG) cream, cortisone cream or percutaneous injections, and laser treatment) were recorded. RESULTS: Thirteen out of 1200 T1D subjects (1%) presented with LA. The majority were on insulin pump using rapid-acting analogs. Twelve out of 13 patients had changed the type of insulin, and most of them had switched injection sites. Ten out of 13 patients used SCG cream and 7/10 showed complete/partial improvement. One patient used dexamethasone injection with improvement. Five patients showed self-improvement. In 3/7 patients who were receiving SCG, treatment was combined with change of insulin type (glulisine); however, in 1/3, the result should be attributed to concomitant laser treatment. In 4/7 patients, there was a clear, beneficial effect of SCG. In 1/4 with partial resolution of LA, laser treatment was used after SCG, which further improved the result. CONCLUSIONS: LA is a rare skin complication seen even today with the use of insulin analogs. SCG alone or combined with change of insulin type seems to be the most effective treatment. Laser treatment is a promising new therapy.

A case of digenic maturity onset diabetes of the young with heterozygous variants in both HNF1Α and HNF1Β genes.

BACKGROUND: Maturity onset diabetes of the young (MODY) is the most commonly reported form of monogenic diabetes in the pediatric population. Only a few cases of digenic MODY have been reported up to now. CASE REPORT: A female patient was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of 7 years and was treated with insulin. A strong family history of diabetes was present in the maternal side of the family. The patient also presented hypomagnesemia, glomerulocystic kidney disease and a bicornuate uterus. Genetic testing of the patient revealed that she was a double heterozygous carrier of HNF1A gene variant c.685C > T; (p.Arg229Ter) and a whole gene deletion of the HNF1B gene. Her mother was a carrier of the same HNF1A variant. CONCLUSION: Digenic inheritance of MODY pathogenic variants is probably more common than currently reported in literature. The use of Next Generation Sequencing panels in testing strategies for MODY could unmask such cases that would otherwise remain undiagnosed.

Treatment failure and recurrence of Clostridium difficile infection following treatment with vancomycin or metronidazole: a systematic review of the evidence.

The objective of this review was to evaluate the frequency of treatment failure and recurrence of Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) following treatment with vancomycin or metronidazole in recently performed studies (last 10 years). Searches in PubMed and Scopus were performed by two reviewers independently. Data regarding treatment failure and recurrence following metronidazole and vancomycin treatment were extracted and analysed. In total, 39 articles (7005 patients) were selected for inclusion in the systematic review. The reported treatment failure was 22.4% with metronidazole (16 studies) and 14.2% with vancomycin (8 studies). Recurrence of CDI occurred in 27.1% of patients following metronidazole treatment (18 studies) and 24.0% of patients following vancomycin treatment (8 studies). Mean treatment failure and recurrence in the selected studies was 22.3% (24 studies) and 22.1% (37 studies). The reported outcomes depended on the study design (higher in prospective and retrospective cohort studies than in randomised controlled trials), geographic location of the study (higher in North America than in Europe and Asia), funding (higher in studies funded by non-profit organisations than pharmaceutical companies), mean age of the studied population (higher in older patients) and duration of follow-up (higher in studies with follow-up >1 month). In conclusion, infection with C. difficile is associated with 22.4% and 14.2% treatment failure and 27.1% and 24.0% recurrence after treatment with metronidazole and vancomycin, respectively. The variation in the reported outcomes amongst studies depends on the study design, location, funding, age and follow-up period.