Significance and clinical impact of routinely tested urinary ethyl glucuronide after liver transplantation - development of a risk score.

Alcohol abuse after liver transplantation can seriously impact graft and patient survival. However, to date, there is no defined standard procedure to identify patients consuming alcohol after liver transplantation. The aim of this study was to analyze the diagnostic value and clinical impact of routinely measured urinary ethyl glucuronide (uEtG) - a metabolite of ethanol - in patients after liver transplantation. Data of 362 consecutive patients after liver transplantation who visited the University Hospital of Tuebingen for outpatient follow-up were analyzed. Forty-eight patients (13%) displayed positive uEtG results. The uEtG positive group contained significantly more patients with pretransplant alcoholic liver disease. However, two thirds of the uEtG positive patients had no history of pretransplant alcoholic liver disease. Several clinical parameters were significantly associated with positive uEtG. In order to enable a more cost-effective application of uEtG in the future, a clinical risk score was developed (specificity 0.95). In conclusion, routine testing for uEtG reveals a considerable percentage of patients practicing alcohol intake after liver transplantation. Application of our proposed risk score could help focusing uEtG testing on patients at risk.

Efficacy of hypnotherapy compared to cognitive behavioral therapy for mild to moderate depression - Results of a randomized controlled rater-blind clinical trial.

BACKGROUND: Methodologically well-designed RCTs concerning the efficacy of Hypnotherapy in the treatment of Major Depression are lacking. The aim of this study was to determine whether Hypnotherapy (HT) is not inferior to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), the gold-standard psychotherapy, in the percentage reduction of depressive symptoms, assessed in mild to moderate Major Depression (MD). METHODS: This study reports the main results of a monocentric two-armed randomized-controlled rater-blind clinical trial. A total of 152 patients with MD were randomized to either CBT or HT receiving outpatient individual psychotherapy with 16 to 20 sessions for the duration of six months. The primary outcome was the mean percentage improvement in depressive symptoms assessed with the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) before and after treatment. RESULTS: The difference in the mean percentage symptom reduction between HT and CBT was 2.8 (95% CI=-9.85 to 15.44) in the Intention-to-treat sample and 4.0 (95% CI=-9.27 to 17.27) in the Per Protocol sample (N=134). Concerning the pre-specified non-inferiority margin of -16.4, both results confirm the non-inferiority of HT to CBT. The results for the follow-ups six and twelve months after the end of the treatment support the primary results. LIMITATIONS: For ethical reasons the trial did not include a control group without treatment; therefore we can only indirectly conclude that both treatment conditions are effective. CONCLUSION: This is the first study to demonstrate that HT was not inferior to CBT in MD, while employing rigorous methodological standards.