Enfermedades hepáticas

At the last congress of the American Gastroenterological Association, several advances related to liver disease were presented. In hepatitis C, the safety and efficacy of eltrombopag, an oral thrombopoietin receptor agonist that significantly increases platelet count in patients with thrombopenia, was reported, opening up evident therapeutic possibilities. A cost-efficacy study suggested that the most appropriate strategy in the diagnosis and primary prophylaxis of esophageal varices is universal treatment with beta blockers followed by diagnosis through capsule endoscopy plus beta-blockers. Quantification of hepatocyte apoptosis through plasma cytokeratin-18 detection may be a tool that might differentiate simple steatosis from steatosis with inflammatory activity in fatty liver disease, which has implications for prognosis. Lastly, the addition of the presence of hyponatremia and ascites, increases the prognostic ability of the model end-stage liver disease (MELD) score.