BACKGROUND/AIMS: The Model for End-Stage Liver Disease (MELD) consists of serum bilirubin and creatinine levels, International Normalized Ratio (INR) for prothrombin time, and etiology of liver disease. The MELD score is a reliable measurement of mortality risk and is suitable for a disease severity index in patients with end-stage liver disease. We examined the validity of the MELD as a disease severity index for patients with end-stage liver disease. METHODS: We investigated the 379 patients with liver cirrhosis hospitalized between January 1995 and May 2001. We retrospectively reviewed the hospital records to verify the diagnosis of cirrhosis and to collect exact patient information about their demographic data, portal hypertensive complications and laboratory data. The ability to classify patients with liver cirrhosis according to their risk of death was examined using the concordance c-statistic. RESULTS: The MELD score performed well in predicting death within 3 months with a c-statistic of 0.73 with etiology and 0.71 without etiology. The significant clinical, laboratory variables on 3 month survival in patients with liver cirrhosis are serum bilirubin, ascites and hepatic encephalopathy. The addition of portal hypertensive complications to the MELD score did not improve the accuracy of the MELD score. CONCLUSIONS: The MELD score is a useful disease severity index for the patients with end-stage liver disease and provides reliable measurement of short term survival over a wide range of liver disease severity and diverse etiology.
Adult ; Bilirubin/blood ; Creatinine/blood ; Female ; Humans ; International Normalized Ratio ; Liver Cirrhosis/blood/*mortality ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Risk Factors ; Severity of Illness Index ; Survival Rate

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) is considered to be a noninvasive, alternative method for evaluating stent restenosis. However, the diagnostic accuracy of 16-channel MDCT for stent stenosis is reported to have severe limitations because of high-attenuation stent-related artifacts. 64-channel MDCT, which recently became available in clinical practice, has better spatial and temporal resolution than 16-channel MDCT. The diagnostic accuracy of 64-channel MDCT for stent restenosis (in-segment and in-stent) was assessed by comparing it with conventional coronary angiography. METHODS: In-segment and in-stent restenosis (> or =50% in diameter) were evaluated in 96 stent segments in 68 patients [61+/-12 years, 51 (75%) male] using both 64-channel MDCT and conventional coronary angiography. The in-stent analysis was confined to the portion of the artery covered by the stent and the in-segment analysis included the stent and 5 mm proximal or distal to the stent edges. RESULTS: The 64-channel MDCT could evaluate stent restenosis in 93 of 96 (97%) stent segments. Quantitative conventional coronary angiography found in-segment restenosis (> or =50% in diameter) in 16 of 68 (23%) patients and 16 of 96 (17%) segments. For the patients with interpretable stent segments, the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of 64-channel MDCT for in-segment restenosis per patient were 63, 96, 83, and 89%, respectively; per segment they were 63, 97, 83, and 93%, respectively; and for in-stent restenosis per stent they were 82, 98, 82, and 98%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The diagnostic accuracy of 64-channel MDCT for assessing stent restenosis had high specificity and negative predictive value in the clinical setting. The 64-channel MDCT may be a promising, less-invasive imaging tool for stent restenosis, especially for the purpose of excluding stent restenosis.
Arteries ; Artifacts ; Constriction, Pathologic ; Coronary Angiography ; Coronary Restenosis ; Humans ; Multidetector Computed Tomography ; Sensitivity and Specificity ; Stents

Combined hepatocellular-cholangiocarcinoma is a rare form of primary liver cancer, featuring both hepatocellular and biliary epithelial differentiations. An intrahepatic tumor may be considered as a metastatic lesion. It has been suggested in the literature that the likelihood of metastasis in the cirrhotic liver is lower than that in the non-cirrhotic liver. A rare case of combined hepatocellular-cholangiocarcinoma and second primary colon adenocarcinoma in a 67-year-old male patient with liver cirrhosis is presented. Histologically, the intrahepatic mass was composed of a spindle cell sarcomatous component; a hepatocellular carcinoma component; and a cholangiocarcinoma component. There were focal transitional regions among the different components. Immunohistochemically, the cholangiocarcinoma component of the intrahepatic mass showed positive reactions for CK-7 but negative reactions for CK-20. The adenocarcinoma of the colon showed positive reactions for CK-20 but negative reactions for CK-7.
Adenocarcinoma/*pathology ; Aged ; Bile Duct Neoplasms/*pathology ; *Bile Ducts, Intrahepatic ; Carcinoma, Hepatocellular/*pathology ; Cholangiocarcinoma/*pathology ; Colonic Neoplasms/*pathology ; English Abstract ; Humans ; Liver Neoplasms/*pathology ; Male ; Neoplasms, Second Primary/*pathology