PBMC protein profiles are useful for the discrimination of UC from CD. The profiles could be a potent biomarker for the differential diagnosis of these diseases. Further investigation of the proteins which contributed to the discrimination could promote elucidation of the pathophysiology of UC and CD.

AimsThe present study evaluated the utility of xenon computed tomography (Xe-CT) as a noninvasive diagnostic procedure for the measurement of hepatic tissue blood flow (TBF) in patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) or chronic hepatitis C (CH-C).MethodsXe-CT was performed in 93 patients with NAFLD and in 109 patients with CH-C. Subjects were classified into one of three groups, based on fibrosis stage: group 1, no bridging fibrosis; group 2, bridging fibrosis; and group 3, liver cirrhosis. Correlations between hepatic TBFs in each fibrosis stage were examined.ResultsIn group 1, portal venous TBF (PVTBF), hepatic arterial (HATBF), and total hepatic TBF (THTBF) were significantly lower in patients with in nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) than in those with CH-C (p < 0.001, p < 0.05, p < 0.001, respectively). In group 2, PVTBF and THTBF were significantly lower in patients with in NASH than in those with CH-C (p < 0.001, p < 0.05, respectively). In group 3, hepatic TBFs were not significantly different when comparing patients with NASH and those with CH-C.ConclusionsPVTBF decreased due to fat infiltration. Therefore, hemodynamic changes occur relatively earlier in NAFLD than in CH-C. Patients with NASH should be monitored carefully for portal hypertensive complications in the early fibrosis stage.

Xenon computed tomography showed that PVTBF increased after EIS for EGV and HATBF decreased in response to an increase in PVTBF.

IPSP is a practicable method allowing reliable post-EP pancreatic stenting and can contribute to pancreatitis prevention. However, larger studies need to be performed before its use can be recommended.

Ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD) are the two major inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). It is difficult to discriminate between UC and CD in 10-15% of IBD cases without typical findings for UC or CD. Such cases are diagnosed as indeterminate colitis (IC). We analyzed protein profiles of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) to discriminate between UC and CD. PBMC-derived proteins from 17 UC patients, 13 CD patients, and 17 healthy control subjects were separated by 2-dimensional differential gel electrophoresis. The intensities of individual protein spots were subjected to multivariate analysis of orthogonal partial least square-discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) of UC and CD. As a result, a total of 547 protein spots were detected. OPLS-DA using 276 protein spots out of the 547 spots clearly discriminated the UC patients from the CD patients. A similar analysis using further selected 58 protein spots showed possible higher performance for the discrimination in unknown cases. Eleven out of the 58 protein spots were successfully identified, which included the proteins associated with inflammation and oxidation/reduction. In addition, the PBMC protein profiles were useful for prediction of clinical parameters such as disease activity. Several proteomic studies, including our study, have shown the excellent discrimination of UC from CD. Therefore, validation of such discriminant models would supply useful biomarkers for the differential diagnosis of UC and CD.