Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowths and Intestinal Methanogen Overgrowths Breath Testing in a Real-Life French Cohort.

INTRODUCTION: Breath testing has become a widely used tool to diagnose small intestinal bacterial overgrowths (SIBOs) and intestinal methanogen overgrowths (IMOs) in clinical settings. Owing to the heterogeneity in clinical manifestations and lack of standardization among centers performing breath testing, SIBO and IMO can be easily overlooked by the clinician. We studied the prevalence and symptoms of SIBO/IMO in French patients referred for breath testing after seeking medical advice. METHODS: Breath test data and symptoms of 331 patients were assessed for SIBO/IMO using the H 2 /CH 4 lactulose breath test (LBT). Wilcoxon test or χ 2 test were used to compare patients with SIBO/IMO with patients without SIBO/IMO. LBT positive patients (H 2 +, CH 4 +, and CH 4 +/H 2 +) were compared using Kruskal-Wallis test for continuous data or χ 2 test for categorical data. RESULTS: Among the 186 (68.1%) patients tested positive for an overgrowth with 40.3%, 47.3%, and 12.4% for H 2 +, CH 4 + and CH 4 +/H 2 +, respectively, the presence of diarrhea was significantly increased in hydrogen type overgrowths ( P < 0.001). No significant difference according to age, gender, and symptoms was associated with a positive test except for joint pain that was less prevalent among LBT positive patients ( P = 0.038). In 86.5% of IMOs, positivity with CH 4 values ≥10 ppm could be identified at baseline. DISCUSSION: There are little discriminating symptoms that can help the clinician to identify patients likely to have a SIBO/IMO. However, SIBO/IMOs remain a common disorder widely underdiagnosed that need further studies to better apprehend functional bowel disorders.

Prospective screening of liver fibrosis in a primary care cohort using systematic calculation of fib-4 in routine results.

BACKGROUND & AIM: Liver fibrosis screening in primary care population is a major public health issue. The FIB-4 index is a simple non-invasive fibrosis test combining age, transaminases, platelets count, developed for the diagnosis of advanced fibrosis. The aim of our study was to evaluate the interest of liver fibrosis screening using systematic calculation of FIB-4 in routine blood analysis. METHODS: Between December 2018 and May 2019, we conducted a prospective screening of liver fibrosis in 134 158 patients during a medical check-up including routine blood analysis. Among these patients, 29 707 had transaminases and platelets counts available and benefited from an automatic calculation of FIB-4. Results were obtained from 21 French clinical laboratories in the Bouches du Rhône region. RESULTS: Among the 29 707 patients, 2161 (7.3%) had a high risk of advanced fibrosis (FIB-4>2.67). Individual investigation of patients with FIB-4>2.67 allowed to screen 1268 (1268/2161: 58.7%) patients who were not managed for any liver disease. CONCLUSIONS: This work demonstrates the interest of FIB-4 for the screening of liver fibrosis in primary care population. Although additional clinical validation study is required to determine the utility and applicability of Fib-4 to daily practice, our study strongly supports this easy-to-implement strategy using a simple Fib-4 measure resulting from the use of available routine test results.

Dried blood spot sampling for hepatitis B virus serology and molecular testing.

BACKGROUND AIMS: Dried blood spots (DBS) on filter paper have been successfully used to diagnose and monitor several infectious diseases. The aim was to investigate the performance of DBS in hepatitis B virus (HBV) diagnosis using commercial tests in comparison to standard methods. METHODS: Paired DBS and plasma samples were collected from 200 patients: 100 patients with HBsAg negative status and 100 patients with HBsAg positive status. In the latter patient, HBeAg reactivity was tested. Ten samples of anti-HBs were collected from people vaccinated against HBV. We also studied 50 patients with positive HBV DNA viral load in plasma and 10 HBV DNA negative patients. HBV genotypes and gene polymerase mutations were determined in 10 randomly selected HBV-infected patients. The DBS sample consisted of 50 µL of whole blood, i.e. a 12-mm paper card. RESULTS: The sensitivity thresholds of HBsAg and anti-HBs antibody were 0.30 ± 0.08 IU/mL and 18.11 ± 6.05 IU/mL, respectively, for DBS with 98% sensitivity and 100% specificity. Sensitivity was 98% and specificity 100% for the detection of HBV DNA on a blotter, considering an HBV DNA threshold of 914.1 ± 157.8 IU/ml. Ten patients had an HBeAg positive status in plasma, all were detected positive using DBS. HBV genotyping and mutation detection were successfully performed on DBS, with full concordance between the 10 paired DBS and plasma samples. CONCLUSION: This study shows DBS is a reliable alternative to plasma specimens for quantifying and detecting HBsAg, anti-HBs, HBeAg and genotyping. DBS may increase the opportunities for HBV testing and treatment follow-up in hard-to-reach individuals.