The Association of Vitamin D3 With Early Anastomotic Leakage in Patients Undergoing Hemicolectomy Surgery.

BACKGROUND: Anastomotic leak (AL) is one of the most important postoperative complications after hemicolectomy with stapled anastomosis. This study aimed to evaluate the association of preoperative vitamin D3 with early anastomotic leakage after right colon cancer surgery with stapled anastomosis. METHOD: In this prospective cohort study, 535 patients who underwent right colon cancer surgery (right hemicolectomy) with stapled anastomosis were enrolled. A subset of 315 patients was included in the study after meeting the inclusion criteria. Preoperative vitamin D level was measured and analyzed for association with early AL using univariable and multivariable logistic regression analyses. RESULT: This study included 315 cases; among them, 18 (5.71%) patients developed early AL. Vitamin D3 was significantly higher among patients without early AL (P < .001). Low vitamin D3 status was reported among 111 patients (35.2%) and 204 (64.8%) of patients did not have low vitamin D3 status (sufficient level = 30-100 ng/mL). Sufficient vitamin D3 levels before right colon cancer surgery with stapled anastomosis was associated inversely with early AL (crude OR = .89, 95% CI = .85-.94, P < .001 and adjusted OR = .89, 95% CI = .82-.98, P = .02). CONCLUSION: The vitamin D3 level has a protective association with early AL. As a result, low vitamin D3 status may be a risk factor for early AL development, suggesting that it can be one of the predictors of early AL occurrence.

Serological investigation for hepatitis E virus infection in the patients with chronic maintenance hemodialysis from southwest of Iran.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: A global distribution has been shown for hepatitis E virus (HEV) infection. Although the fecal-oral was considered as the primary infection route, there is controversial evidence for increased risk of the infection and consequent problems in patients on maintenance hemodialysis (HD) with suppressed immunity. The aim is to find if the prevalence of anti-HEV IgG, in patients with maintenance HD is higher than normal population in southwest of Iran. MATERIALS AND METHODS: During November and December 2010, in a cross-sectional study we compared the seroprevalence of HEV among 80 patients with maintenance HD and 276 healthy individuals from Jahrom and Shiraz, Southwest of Iran. In addition to the clinical and laboratory records, serum samples were tested for the presence of IgG anti-HEV antibody by enzyme immunoassay (ELISA) test. The Chi-square, the Student's 't' and Fisher's exact tests were used for the statistical analysis. RESULTS: ELISA tests detected anti-HEV antibody in five males of the patients (6.3%) and in eight of the healthy controls (2.9%, 6 males and 2 female) which statistically were not different. The mean levels of the aspartate aminotransferase and the alanine aminotransferase in the sera of the patients were 19.96±11.08U/L and 23.93±14.26 IU/L, respectively. However, no one of the individuals with positive anti-HEV antibody showed elevated liver enzymes. Moreover, there was not a significant association between positive anti-HEV antibody result, age and the history of the hemodialysis. CONCLUSIONS: We did not observe statistically significant higher anti-HEV prevalence among patients with chronic HD; however, more safety precaution is needed to keep HD patients from the risk of possible exposure to HEV infection.