Five-year outcomes in liver transplant patients receiving everolimus with or without a calcineurin inhibitor: Results from the CERTITUDE study.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: To report 5-year outcomes of the CERTITUDE study. METHODS: An observational study in patients with liver transplantation (LTx) compared the long-term impact of immunosuppression (with/without a calcineurin inhibitor) on renal function, cancers, major cardiovascular events (MACEs) and other safety parameters. All patients completing the 6-month SIMCER study were recruited and analysed according to treatment received at randomization and actual treatment received during the follow-up. RESULTS: Of the 143 enrolled patients, 119 completed the 5-year follow-up (everolimus [EVR], n = 55; tacrolimus [TAC], n = 64). The mean absolute change in estimated glomerular filtration rate was not statistically different between both groups (TAC, -15.53 ml/min/1.73 m2 and EVR, -14.56 ml/min/1.73 m2 ). In the treatment subgroups based on actual treatment received, renal function was preserved better in the EVR subgroup compared with other subgroups (p = .051). Treated biopsy-proven acute rejection was higher in the EVR group (15.4% vs. 6.4%); however, the majority of events were mild in severity. MACE occurred in 9.2% vs. 14.1% of patients in the EVR and TAC groups respectively (p = .370). De novo cancer was reported in 14 and 5 patients in EVR and TAC groups respectively. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) recurrence was observed in the TAC group alone (n = 4). Adverse events and treatment discontinuation owing to an adverse event were higher in the EVR group. CONCLUSIONS: The CERTITUDE study demonstrated that EVR- and TAC-based regimens have comparable efficacy, safety and tolerability up to 5 years post-LTx.

[Lung diseases and miscellaneous pathologies in the novels of François Mauriac and Pierre Benoit]. / Maladies pulmonaires et autres pathologies dans l'œuvre de François Mauriac et Pierre Benoit.

Two modern novelists of the 20th century native from the Landes, François Mauriac (1885-1970) and Pierre Benoit (1886-1962), were eager to locate a part of their novels in the French South-West. Beyond the silence and the torrid warmth of this "sand desert populated by pine trees", each of them make live, suffer and die their sick heroes from diseases treated with therapies of that time with the risk of voluntary or not drug misuse : tuberculosis, cardiac insufficiency, angina pectoris, puerperal and typhoid fevers and other diseases.

[Two French pioneers of plastic surgery: François Dubois and Raymond Passot]. / Deux pionniers français de la chirurgie esthétique: François Dubois et Raymond Passot.

After World War, especially during the interwar years, new plastic surgical techniques were highly developed by I two French surgeons: Dr Raymond Passot, a pupil of Pr Hippolyte Morestin, Head of surgery department in Val-de-Grâce military hospital, Father of the Gueules cassées and Dr François Dubois, a pupil of Pr Sébileau, head of ear nose throat disorders department at Lariboisière Hospital in Paris. By the way of papers, publications and interviews to media, they described new French cosmetic techniques (rhitidectomy, sutures, liposuccion) and extensively developed this outpatient surgery. They used to renove famous actresse's and actors' face and nose and those of hundreds of patients. They participate to French societies of plastic surgery meetings and publications. Their enthusiastic dare largely participated to the current success of cosmetic surgery in France.