Impact of liver steatosis on the correlation between liver stiffness and fibrosis measured by transient elastography in patients coinfected with human immunodeficiency virus and hepatitis C virus.

We assessed the effect of different hepatic conditions such as fibrosis, steatosis and necroinflammatory activity on liver stiffness as measured by transient elastography in HIV/HCV-coinfected patients. We studied all consecutive HIV/HCV-coinfected patients who underwent liver biopsy and elastography between January 2007 and December 2008. Liver fibrosis was staged following METAVIR Cooperative Study Group criteria. Steatosis was categorized according to the percentage of affected hepatocytes as low (≤10%), moderate (<25%) and severe (≥25%). A total of 110 patients were included. Fibrosis was distributed by stage as follows: F0, n = 13; F1, n = 47; F2, n = 29; F3, n = 18; and F4, n = 3. Liver biopsy revealed the presence of hepatic steatosis in 68 patients (low to moderate, n = 53; and severe n = 15). By univariate regression analysis, fibrosis, necroinflammatory activity, and the degree of steatosis were correlated with liver stiffness. However, in a multiple regression analysis, steatosis and fibrosis were the only independent variables significantly associated with liver stiffness. With a cut-off of 9.5 kPa to distinguish patients with F ≤ 2 from F ≥ 3, elastography led to a significantly higher number of misclassification errors (25%vs 5%; P = 0.014), most of which were false positives for F ≥ 3. Our study suggests that the correlation between liver stiffness and fibrosis as estimated by transient elastography may be affected by the presence of hepatic steatosis in HIV/HCV-coinfected patients.

[Drug-resistant tuberculosis at a general hospital]. / Tuberculosis resistente a fármacos en un hospital general.

OBJECTIVES: To determine the prevalence of M. tuberculosis isolates resistant to drugs in a general hospital and to assess its association with HIV infection. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Susceptibility analysis of all isolates of M. tuberculosis in a 4-year period (1990-1993). The proportion method was used to study the susceptibility to eight drugs. To assess the association of resistance with HIV infection a crossing was made of patients records who had M. tuberculosis recovered and that of patients with positive serology to HIV. RESULTS: Forty-two out of a total of 760 isolates (5.5%) were resistant to at least one drug, including isoniazid in 27 (3.3%), rifampin in 13 (1.6%), and pyrazinamide in 2 (0.2%). None of the isolates was resistant to ofloxacin. Twenty isolates (2.6%) were resistant to more than one drug and 9 (1.2%) were resistant to at least isoniazid and rifampin. Overall, 39% of resistance to one drug occurred in patients who had not received previous therapy with that drug. A greater incidence of resistant isolates was observed in HIV+ patients (7.3%) than in HIV- patients (4.6%), although this difference did not reach a statistical significance. CONCLUSIONS: Drug resistance rate in M. tuberculosis isolates in our hospital is still low and apparently not associated with HIV infection.