Effect of HCV eradication on critical flicker frequency in HIV/HCV coinfected patients with advanced cirrhosis.

BACKGROUND: Critical flicker frequency (CFF), defined as the frequency at which a subject perceives a flickering light as continuous, is directly associated with central nervous system alertness. METHODS: We studied CFF using the Hepatonorm analyzer (Medi-Business Freiburg GmGH, Germany) at baseline and after hepatitis C virus (HCV) eradication in 47 patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/HCV coinfection and cirrhosis. Patients had a mean age of 52 years, 81% were male, and 80% had a history of drug use. RESULTS: We observed an increase in the CFF at the end of HCV therapy compared to baseline (42.3 ±â€¯8.5 Hz vs. 45.9 ±â€¯7.8 Hz; p = 0.001), and a reduction in the proportion of patients with subclinical hepatic encephalopathy (defined as a CFF <39 Hz) from 15 (32%) of 47 patients at baseline to 7 (17%) of 41 patients after HCV therapy (p = 0.180). CONCLUSION: HCV eradication in HIV/HCV coinfected patients increases CFF, indicating improved liver function.

Full coding hepatitis E virus genotype 3 genome amplification method.

Hepatitis E virus (HEV) genotype 3 produces zoonotic infection associated with the consumption of infected animals. HEV infections can become chronic in immunocompromised (IC) patients. The viral genome has three well defined open reading frames (ORF1, ORF2 and ORF3) within which various domains and functions have been described. This paper (i) describes a new method of complete sequencing of the HEV coding region through overlapping PCR systems, (ii) establishes a consensus sequence and polymorphic positions (PP) for each domain, and (iii) analyzes the complete coding sequence of an IC patient. With regard to the consensus, a high percentage of PP was observed in protease (PP=19%) and the X domain (PP=22%) within ORF1, the N-terminal region of the S domain (PP=22%) in ORF2, and the P1 (PP=35%) and P2 (PP=25%) domains in ORF3. In contrast, the ORF1 Y, ORF2 S, ORF2 M and ORF3 D1 domains were conserved in the reference sequences (0.40, 1, 0.70 and 0% of PP, respectively). The sequence from the IC patient had more mutations in the RpRp (D1235G, Q1242R, S1454T, V1480I, I1502 V, K1511R, G1373 V, E1442D, V1693 M), the terminal ORF2 S- domain (F10L, S26T, G36S, S70P, A105 V, I113 V), the X domain (T938 M, T856 V, S898A) and the helicase (S1014N, S975T, Q1133 K).

[National survey on school lunches and demand of special diets]. / Encuesta nacional sobre comedores escolares y demanda de dietas especiales.

INTRODUCTION: It is well known that to improve the feeding of the students it would improve its health and wellbeing, contributing to the reduction of the risk of chronic diseases in adults. In Spain, this is especially important considering the data of prevalence of infantile obesity. OBJECTIVES: To know the number of users of school cafeterias in Spain as well as different considerations on its management, nutritional supervision and the number of special diets served to students with specific requirements due to pathologies or other causes. RESULTS: The II national Survey has been realized on school cafeterias: 7,710 used daily by 678,587 users. They provide near the 2.8% of special diets (allergies 38.9%, other pathologies 23.2%, religious causes 26.7% causes and celiac disease 11.1%). CONCLUSIONS: The numbers of prevalence of obesity and infantile overweight indicate that it is necessary to improve the diet of the students.