RESUMO
A 23-year-old African American male with a medical history significant for poorly controlled type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) presented with abdominal pain and vomiting. His laboratory workup was consistent with diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). An acute elevation of liver enzymes was noted as the DKA resolved, with the alanine transferase and aspartate transferase levels elevated to more than 50 times the normal limit within the next 24 hours. Because abnormal liver function tests are found frequently in patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus, it is important to have a broad differential diagnosis. Furthermore, a low threshold of suspicion is required to identify a relatively underdiagnosed etiology like glycogenic hepatopathy (GH). This case report describes how patterns and trends of liver function tests provide important clues to the diagnosis of GH; how imaging modalities like ultrasonography, computerized tomography (CT) scan, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan could be used to differentiate GH from nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD); and how the diagnosis of GH can be made without the need for invasive liver biopsy. The knowledge about GH should prevent its delayed diagnosis and improve the outcomes by appropriately managing uncontrolled type 1 DM.
RESUMO
BACKGROUND: We investigated whether right ventricular dysfunction (RVD) as assessed by echocardiogram can be used as a prognostic factor in hemodynamically stable patients with acute pulmonary embolism (PE). Short-term mortality has been investigated only in small studies and the results have been controversial. METHODS: A PubMed search was conducted using two keywords, "pulmonary embolism" and "echocardiogram", for articles published between January 1st 1998 and December 31st 2011. Out of 991 articles, after careful review, we found 12 articles that investigated the implications of RVD as assessed by echocardiogram in predicting short-term mortality for hemodynamically stable patients with acute PE. We conducted a meta-analysis of these data to identify whether the presence of RVD increased short-term mortality. RESULTS: Among 3283 hemodynamically stable patients with acute PE, 1223 patients (37.3%) had RVD, as assessed by echocardiogram, while 2060 patients (62.7%) had normal right ventricular function. Short-term mortality was reported in 167 (13.7%) out of 1223 patients with RVD and in 134 (6.5%) out of 2060 patients without RVD. Hemodynamically stable patients with acute PE who had RVD as assessed by echocardiogram had a 2.29-fold increase in short-term mortality (odds ratio 2.29, 95% confidence interval 1.61-3.26) compared with patients without RVD. CONCLUSIONS: In hemodynamically stable patients with acute PE, RVD as assessed by echocardiogram increases short-term mortality by 2.29 times. Consideration should be given to obtaining echocardiogram to identify high-risk patients even if they are hemodynamically stable.
