Mercedes Fernández Rodríguez

Long-term outcome in Caucasian patients with chronic hepatitis B virus infection after HBsAg seroclearance.

The natural course after hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) seroclearance in Caucasian patients with chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is not well‐defined. To investigate the clinical characteristics and outcome in a series of European Caucasian patients with chronic HBV infection according to HBsAg response over time.

Prevalence and epidemiology of hepatitis D among patients with chronic hepatitis B virus infection: a report from Northern Spain

Background The incidence of hepatitis delta virus (HDV) infection has decreased during the last decades. However, an increasing trend has been reported recently. Patients and methods We carried out a case–control study to analyze changes in its prevalence in 1215 chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) patients, diagnosed consecutively in a tertiary center, between 1983 and 2012. According to the year of diagnosis, patients were distributed into two groups: A [1983–1997 (n=786)] and B [1998–2012 (n=429)]. Results The prevalence of anti-HDV was 8.2% (9.4% in group A and 6.1% in group B) (P=0.04). Multivariate regression revealed that intravenous drug use [odds ratio (OR) 261.0; 95% confidence interval (CI), 28.7–2368.5; P<0.001], blood transfusion (OR 28.0; 95% CI, 2.7–295.9; P=0.03), anti-HIV(+) (OR 4.8; 95% CI, 1.6–14.5; P=0.004), and high alanine aminotransferase (OR 14.4; 95% CI, 3.4–60.6; P<0.001) were associated independently with the presence of anti-HDV in group A, whereas in group B, it was associated with immigration (OR 20.0; 95% CI, 4.7–84.9; P<0.001), intravenous drug use (OR 683.5; 95% CI, 52.7–8855.7; P<0.001), promiscuous sexual activity (OR 22.6; 95% CI, 2.2–228.5; P=0.008), and high alanine aminotransferase (OR 3.4; 95% CI, 1.1–10.0; P=0.02). Conclusion Although a significant decrease in the prevalence of HDV infection has been observed, it is still above 5%. Immigration and sexual transmission have emerged as new risk factors for HDV infection.

Matlab Tools: An Alternative to Planning Systems in Brachytherapy Treatments

This work proposes the use of the Matlab environment to obtain the treatment dose based on the reported data by Krishnaswamy and Liu et al. The comparison with reported measurements is showed for the Amersham source model. For the 3M source model, measurements with TLDs and a Monte Carlo simulation are compared to the data obtained by Matlab. The difference for the Amersham model is well under the 15% recommended by the IAEA and for the 3M model, although the difference is greater, the results are consistent. The good agreement to the reported data allows the Matlab calculations to be used in daily brachytherapy treatments.