Comparison of efficacy and safety of ilaprazole and esomeprazole both in initial treatment regimen and retreatment regimen of Helicobacter pylori infection in chronic gastritis.

The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy and safety of ilaprazole and esomeprazole both in initial treatment regimen and retreatment regimen of H. pylori infection in chronic gastritis and to explore risk factors for eradication failure. A total of 330 patients with chronic gastritis who were confirmed of H. pylori infection were enrolled in this study. 290 of them were initially treated patients and the 40 remained were patients with retreatment. Eradication assessment was performed at least four weeks after the completion of eradication therapy. Results showed that the eradication rates of the ilaprazole group and esomeprazole group were 91.4 % and 88.4 % for per-protocol (PP) analysis (p=0.41) and 89.0 % and 86.2 % for intention-to-treat (ITT) analysis (p=0.48) in initially treated patients. Meanwhile, they were 75.0 % and 72.2 % for PP analysis (p=0.85) and 75.0 % and 70.0 % for ITT analysis (p=0.72) in patients with retreatment. The differences were not statistically significant. There was also no significant difference in safety between the two drugs. A multiple logistic regression analysis showed that demographic factors such as age, gender, alcohol, smoking, coronary heart disease (CHD), hypertension (HTN) and diabetes mellitus (DM) did not affect eradication rates. However, patients with higher DOB values and patients with atrophic gastritis had significantly lower eradication rates than patients with lower DOB values and with non-atrophic gastritis whether the proton pump inhibitor (PPI) in eradication regimens was ilaprazole or esomeprazole. In conclusion, our findings suggest that the efficacy and safety of ilaprazole and esomeprazole were not significantly different both in initial treatment regimen and retreatment regimen of H. pylori infection in chronic gastritis and DOB values and type of chronic gastritis were to be independent risk factors for eradication failure. In addition, we discovered that a new quadruple regimen containing furazolidone and minocycline which achieved good efficacy and safety can be a promising option for retreatment of H. pylori infection.

Impact of the first wave of COVID-19 on Crohn's disease after the end of "zero-COVID" policy in China.

Background: The incidence and severity of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) among Crohn's disease (CD) patients are unknown in China. This study aimed to clarify the clinical courses and outcomes of CD patients in the first COVID-19 wave after the end of "zero-COVID" policy in China. Methods: Clinical characteristics, including vaccination doses and medications of 880 CD patients from a prospective cohort were collected for analysis. Results: Of the enrolled patients (n = 880) who underwent nucleic acid or antigen testing for COVID-19 from Dec 7, 2022, to Jan 7, 2023, 779 (88.5%) were infected with COVID-19. Among the infected patients, 755 (96.9%) were mild, 14 (1.8%) were moderate, one patient with leukemia died of cerebral hemorrhage (mortality, 0.1%) and only 9 (1.2%) were asymptomatic. Fever, cough, headache and appetite loss were the most frequently observed symptoms in general, respiratory, neurological and gastrointestinal manifestations, respectively. The age and disease duration were significantly higher (40/32, 5.6/3.6, all p < 0.05) in moderate patients than those in mild patients. All other clinical characteristics, including CD activity and medication exposure, showed no significant differences between the above two groups. Furthermore, no significant difference in vaccination or comorbidities was observed between the two groups. Conclusion: Most CD patients contracted the Omicron infection and experienced mild disease courses in the first COVID-19 wave attack after China ended the "zero-COVID" policy irrespective of vaccination dose or comorbidities.

A novel radiomics-platelet nomogram for the prediction of gastroesophageal varices needing treatment in cirrhotic patients.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Highly accurate noninvasive methods for predicting gastroesophageal varices needing treatment (VNT) are desired. Radiomics is a newly emerging technology of image analysis. This study aims to develop and validate a novel noninvasive method based on radiomics for predicting VNT in cirrhosis. METHODS: In this retrospective-prospective study, a total of 245 cirrhotic patients were divided as the training set, internal validation set and external validation set. Radiomics features were extracted from portal-phase computed tomography (CT) images of each patient. A radiomics signature (Rad score) was constructed with the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator algorithm and tenfold cross-validation in the training set. Combined with independent risk factors, a radiomics nomogram was built with a multivariate logistic regression model. RESULTS: The Rad score, consisting of 14 features from the gastroesophageal region and 5 from the splenic hilum region, was effective for VNT classification. The diagnostic performance was further improved by combining the Rad score with platelet counts, achieving an AUC of 0.987 (95% CI 0.969-1.00), 0.973 (95% CI 0.939-1.00) and 0.947 (95% CI 0.876-1.00) in the training set, internal validation set and external validation set, respectively. In efficacy and safety assessment, the radiomics nomogram could spare more than 40% of endoscopic examinations with a low risk of missing VNT (< 5%), and no more than 8.3% of unnecessary endoscopic examinations still be performed. CONCLUSIONS: In this study, we developed and validated a novel, diagnostic radiomics-based nomogram which is a reliable and noninvasive method to predict VNT in cirrhotic patients. CLINICAL TRIALS REGISTRATION: NCT04210297.