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Hb needs to be kept 7-8g/dl at least,  and a target of >9-10g/dl  if significant cardiovascular disease.  Andenaxet is recommended if life threatening or uncontrolled bleeding, like this case which is responding only partially to resucitation with fluids and continues to pass blood, so it could be prescribed.  If not available, 4-F PCC can be used instead.  Urgent sigmoidoscopy in general has no role and it would likely be useless without an adequate bowel preparation as we would expect to have very poor visibility due to stool and blood remains.

Unprepped colonoscopy or any form of sigmoidoscopy is NOT recommended in acute lower GI Bleeding unless very clear that the source is known to be anorectal or very distal colon (see American Guidelines) BSG guidelines also recommneds Colonoscopy as  inpatient with adequate bowel preparation, not urgently but  ideally after stabilising the patient.

If after resucitation and transfusion the patient remains unstable, then a joined plan with intensivist and surgical colleagues should be made (i.e, Interventional radiology, vs quick preparation with movicol, vs enema and salvage lower endoscopy, vs surgical approach)

Based on this  article of the NEJM

Whenever an HCC (Hepatocelullar carcinoma) is resected in an early starge, 5-year recurrence occurs in up to 60-70% of the cases,  either as a result of intrahepatic metastases (true recurrent disease) or de novo cancer in the remaining cirrhotic liver .  However, similar rates of reccurence occurs if we use ablation instead of surgical resection (  between 60% and 85% recurrence with ablation) via the same mechanisms (either incomplete tumor erradication, or new tumor formation)

5-year recurrence after liver transplant is way lower (8-20%) and of course varies depending on the tumoral burden --> potential microvascular invasion at the time of the transplant.

See BSG guidelines

Based on the KSGE (Korean society of GI endoscopy) 2021 guidelines : Repeat EUS-guided acquisition provides a conclusive diagnosis in the majority of cases with indeterminate cytopathological diagnoses and, therefore, should be strongly recommended ahead of other modalities, such as biopsy under computed tomography-guidance or diagnostic surgical exploration.

Also common sense will tell us repeating EUS is the less invasive option and has high chances of being successful in tissue adquisition. If persisting negative/inconclusive material, MDT re-discussion should take place and possibly surgical team should speak to the patient regarding risks and benefits of  laparoscopic examination or even proceeding to pancreatectomy -the incidence of benign disease among patients undergoing pancreatic resection for suspicion of malignancy is extremely variable, ranging  from roughly 4-13% , but in some series has been reported up to 35%.

Scores of 8-14 represent Hazardous or Harmful range. In those cases, the recommendation is to explain to the patient that they may be drinking too much on occasions, and the likely negative impact the alcohol can cause as it is carcinogenic, can help developing cardiovascular disease, can cause dependence and can put you or others at risk.

Any  score of 15 or above associates high risk (drinking could cause harm and it is important a clear determination to cut down or stop alcohol). Any score of 20 or above indicates likely dependence and needs referral to specialist and supervised detoxification

Even in 2019, 38.9% of the HCC- liver transplant  had Hepatitis C etiology (vs 24% NASH and 16.3% ALD) . This is completely different in patients without HCC (the majority of liver transplant candidates, which only 7% had hepatitis C , 28% NASH and the leading cause with 37.7 %  was ALD.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cgh.2020.05.0

The proportion of AST to ALT in hepatocytes is about 2.5:1, but because AST is removed from serum by the liver sinusoidal cells twice as quickly (serum half-life t1/2 = 18 hr) compared to ALT (t1/2 = 36 hr), so the resulting serum levels of AST and ALT are about equal in healthy individuals, resulting in a normal AST/ALT ratio around 1. See here.

B6 is more essencial for ALT synthesis than AST, that is why in chronic alcohol (low B6) we will see a reduction of ALT in proportion to AST, increasing the AST/ALT ratio>2

The caliber of the duodenoscope is 11.3mm  (shaft) with a 13.5mm distal end outer diameter.

This can help us  estimating the size of the biliary duct and the stones. We should use a balloon no bigger than  the size of the biliary duct at level of the trapped  stone, and ideally no  bigger than the duct diameter proximal to the ampullary segment.

In this case  biliary duct is approx the same size as the shaft , perhaps slightly less(10-11mm) therefore it is reasonable to start with the size balloon of 10mm (for 30-60 secs, although this is not well stablished) and keep inflating in ranges of 1mm per minute, until the waist of the balloon (see arrow)  disappears completely on fluoroscopic examination (see added picture  of a real balloon at the right to see how it should look at the end of the procedure) . Once balloon waist is gone, sphincter is considered to be adequately dilated .

If someone has IgA deficiency and celiac disease, the IgA deficiency can cause a false negative on a celiac disease antibody test.  (As IgA anti transglutaminase antibodies may be falsely normal) In this case it is important to perform IgG-specific antibody tests for endomysium, gliadin, and tissue transglutaminase

1. True.  Around 80%  of AIH will be either ANA or ASMA+, 8% AMA+, 2% LKM+. 30% SLA+
2.  True. Less than 50% in reduction of transaminases in 4 weeks after treatment is considered Non-response. (Occurs in 17% of treated patients and assoiciates a 7-fold risk of liver related death )
3.  False. Previous guidedlines suggested this parameter, but now we consider response when complete normalisation of transmanisases and IgG.   Liver biopsy is very useful to asses histological response if Modified Ishak hepatitis activity index (mHAI) <4 /18, however histology response lags behind biochemical response by several months: in one  RCT, only 28% and 50% of patients receiving prednisolone±azathioprine achieved histological remission after 6 and 12 months, respectively. Thus, repeat biopsy to confirm remission is not recommended over the first 2 years

4.  True. Since the response criteria are more strict, there will be 20-30% who wont achieve complete biochemical remission.  These scenarios are tricky, we need to compare the overall response, patient adeherence to treatment, considering Azathioprine adeherence and metabolism:  Measuring Thioguanin nucleotides- TGN-  to see that they are in therapeutic range(>220 pmol/8×10) and  Metilmercaptoruine ( MeMP) > 5700 can confirm that the patient is taking the right dose,  Also there are specific situations in which transaminases can remain slightly abnormal due to other causes like MASLD or drug related, and IgG is commonly raised in conditions like cirrhosis.

Check BSG guidelines AIH