Ana Cristina de Jesus Alves

Interferon-induced sarcoidosis

Sarcoidosis is a rare side effect of interferon therapy that has been reported over the last years. We present the case of a 43-year-old man presenting with systemic sarcoidosis during treatment with pegylated interferon and ribavirin. Skin lesions, which were found to be associated with asymptomatic bilateral hilar lymph nodes and pulmonary nodules, were the sole clinical manifestation of the disease. Stopping therapy resulted in clinical and radiological improvement.

Comparison of the prognostic value of Chronic Liver Failure Consortium scores and traditional models for predicting mortality in patients with cirrhosis

BACKGROUND AND AIM Recently, the European Association for the Study of the Liver - Chronic Liver Failure (CLIF) Consortium defined two new prognostic scores, according to the presence or absence of acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF): the CLIF Consortium ACLF score (CLIF-C ACLFs) and the CLIF-C Acute Decompensation score (CLIF-C ADs). We sought to compare their accuracy in predicting 30- and 90-day mortality with some of the existing models: Child-Turcotte-Pugh (CTP), Model for End-Stage Liver Disease (MELD), MELD-Na, integrated MELD (iMELD), MELD to serum sodium ratio index (MESO), Refit MELD and Refit MELD-Na. METHODS Retrospective cohort study that evaluated all admissions due to decompensated cirrhosis in 2 centers between 2011 and 2014. At admission each score was assessed, and the discrimination ability was compared by measuring the area under the ROC curve (AUROC). RESULTS A total of 779 hospitalizations were evaluated. Two hundred and twenty-two patients met criteria for ACLF (25.9%). The 30- and 90-day mortality were respectively 17.7 and 37.3%. CLIF-C ACLFs presented an AUROC for predicting 30- and 90-day mortality of 0.684 (95% CI: 0.599-0.770) and 0.666 (95% CI: 0.588-0.744) respectively. No statistically significant differences were found when compared to traditional models. For patients without ACLF, CLIF-C ADs had an AUROC for predicting 30- and 90-day mortality of 0.689 (95% CI: 0.614-0.763) and 0.672 (95% CI: 0.624-0.720) respectively. When compared to other scores, it was only statistically superior to MELD for predicting 30-day mortality (p=0.0296). CONCLUSIONS The new CLIF-C scores were not statistically superior to the traditional models, with the exception of CLIF-C ADs for predicting 30-day mortality.