In the left-sided hepatic hydrothorax that we previously reported, Levovist, the ultrasonography contrast agent, was seen as jet flow synchronized with heartbeat

inside the pleural cavity. In the present right-sided hepatic hydrothorax, Sonazoid was seen as turbinated flow synchronized with respiration in three of the five patients and as hyperechoic spots diffused inside the pleural cavity in the other two patients, representing a very interesting finding. None of the seven patients experienced any complications during or after the examination. This is the first report to show transdiaphragmatic movement of ascitic fluid into the pleural cavity using contrast-enhanced ultrasonography with Sonazoid. This method can safely detect ascitic flow in real time, and thus, is NVP-BEZ235 nmr very useful for the diagnosis of hepatic hydrothorax. see more “
“We read with interest the letter by Marrero and El-Serag that calls for the inclusion of alpha-fetoprotein

(AFP) in the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) updated guidelines for the management of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).1, 2 However, we disagree with their conclusions and feel that the AASLD recommendation to perform HCC surveillance with ultrasonography (US) alone is supported by solid evidence.1, 2 The evidence supporting surveillance programs for HCC with liver US with or without AFP testing stems from the results of a randomized controlled trial and from cohort studies showing that selleck chemical surveillance improves both detection rate of early HCCs and patient survival.3-5 However, it is clear that the authors of the AASLD guidelines took into account the numerous limitations of AFP testing, and therefore it is no surprise that they did not include this serological marker in their HCC surveillance recommendations.2

In fact, although we may agree with Marrero and El-Serag that the Hepatitis C Antiviral Long-Term Treatment Against Cirrhosis (HALT-C) trial is a suboptimal setting to assess the role of AFP for the early detection of HCC, this study had the precious gifts of providing prospectively collected data and to include a large population of patients who were mainly at risk of developing HCC.6 Furthermore, data were available both at HCC diagnosis and 1 year before, thus being as close as possible to everyday clinical practice and therefore providing the best evidence currently available.2, 6 In this study, the sensitivity of AFP at a cutoff of 20 ng/mL was low (i.e., 61%) at the time of HCC diagnosis, yet at 22% it was unacceptably low 12 months before, when HCC was likely present in the majority of patients.