Background: Liver injury is commonly seen in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). However, the mechanism behind liver injury, particularly in severe and critical COVID-19 patients, remains unclear and the clinical course is poorly described. Methods: We conducted a single-center, retrospective cohort study of consecutive hospitalized severe and critically ill COVID-19 patients with or without liver injury who underwent immunologic testing (IL-6, IL-8, TNF-α, and IL-1ß). Liver injury was defined as peak aminotransferases ≥3x ULN

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The need for effective diagnosis, staging, and treatment of rectal cancer cannot be overstated. Accurate staging of rectal cancer has wide-ranging implications, including therapeutic strategy and prognosis. A change in stage may lead to the need for preoperative neoadjuvant therapy to decrease the risk of recurrence. The modalities commonly used for the primary staging of rectal cancer include EUS, computed tomography, and magnetic resonance imaging. EUS may be accompanied by the use of EUS-fine-needle aspiration to provide cytological confirmation. In this review, we take a deeper look into the role of EUS in the accurate staging of rectal cancer, how it compares to other modalities for the same, and how its role has changed in the last decade.

While research is still ongoing, no single technique has emerged as the modality of choice to reliably predict pCR in all patients. Studies investigating the sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of these modalities have had promising results, but no single modality has been firmly validated as the modality if choice. The emergence of functional imaging techniques and the use of biomarkers are newer developments which need further evaluation before adoption in routine clinical practice. While no single technique reliably predicts pCR, a combination of imaging and diagnostic modalities (endoscopic appearance, biopsy, EUS, and PET/CT) may provide a better diagnostic yield rather than any of these modalities taken alone.