Less liver fibrosis in metabolically healthy compared with metabolically unhealthy obese patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

AIM: This cross-sectional study evaluated liver fibrosis in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), and compared the characteristics of metabolically healthy obese (MHO) with metabolically unhealthy obese (MUHO) patients. METHODS: The study was nested within a randomized clinical trial (RCT) and included obese patients with NAFLD, as determined by liver ultrasonography. Fibrosis was assessed by transient elastography, and AST-to-platelet ratio index (APRI) and NAFLD score. Patients were compared according to obesity phenotype using various accepted criteria. RESULTS: The RCT included 1024 patients with NAFLD, of whom 428 (41.7%) were included in the present study. The prevalence of MHO ranged from 1.2% to 63%, depending on the criteria used. According to various criteria for metabolic health, obese patients had less liver fibrosis. MHO patients, as defined by all criteria, showed a significantly lower prevalence of advanced liver fibrosis (F3-F4) than MUHO on transient elastography (16.5% vs. 28%, respectively; P≤0.05). CONCLUSION: MUHO patients are at higher risk of liver fibrosis and, therefore, the identification of obese patients with 'healthy' characteristics is imperative as their entire clinical work-ups are likely to differ.

Expression of non-replicating persistence associated genes of Mycobacterium bovis in lymph nodes from skin test-reactor cattle.

Upon oxygen shift-down, Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex bacteria can induce a genetic program characterized by halted duplication, which is called Non-replicating persistence (NRP). During this phase, at least 48 genes, collectively named Dormancy survival regulator (DosR) regulon, are important for the long-term survival of bacilli under a non-respiring state, a condition that bacilli encounter inside granulomatous lesions. It remains unclear whether expression of NRP genes occurs within the tissue of Mycobacterium bovis naturally infected cattle. In order to start dissecting this question, total RNA from bovine lymph node tissues of sacrificed tuberculin reacting animals was isolated and transcription of genes required for in vivo duplication (esxB and fbpB) and in vitro NRP (hspX, pfkB, and mb2660c) were analyzed by RT-PCR approaches. Detection of transcripts was positive in bovine tissue samples for genes hspX, pfkB, and mb2660c in 84, 32, and 21%, respectively. NRP genes were upregulated even in animals with a negative IFN-γ in vitro test, and the expression of NRP genes occurred more often than expression of the esxB gene.

[Presence of ferruginous bodies in cancerous pulmonary tissue]. / Presencia de cuerpos ferruginosos en tejido pulmonar canceroso.

The correlation between high counts of ferruginous bodies (FB) and pulmonary cancer was investigated. Autopsy cases between 1982 and 1988 were chosen, and studied at Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Respiratorias. Two grams of lung tissue were digested with sodium hypochlorite. We found no differences in the histologic types of cancer: 18.0 FB per gram (FB/g) for the adenocarcinoma group and 16.0 FB/g for both the epidermoid and anaplastic groups. The asbestos core was predominant in all FB analysed (greater than 85%). Males, Mexico city residents and smokers showed to higher amounts of FB. We concluded that there is an environmental exposure to particles in the cases studied.