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Biomedical subjects

E Juhl

Publications and source records attributed to E Juhl.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1985

Survival after jaundice: a prospective study of 1000 consecutive cases.

A consecutive series of 1002 jaundiced adult patients covering 23 different causes of jaundice is presented. Patients were followed up for 2 to 7 years. The survival for the 784 patients included during their first episode of jaundice was calculated for each diagnostic category. Examples of decreased survival as compared with the general population were (figures indicate 3 months' and 5 years' survival, respectively): alcoholic cirrhosis 0.81, 0.35; cryptogenic cirrhosis 0.78, 0.32; pancreatic carcinoma 0.54, 0.04; cholangiocarcinoma 0.26, 0.00; and heart failure with liver congestion 0.47, 0.07. Ten of 172 patients with acute viral hepatitis died, 1 of fulminant hepatitis and 9 because of suicide or accidents. Of 105 patients with gallstones 37 died during the study period, but in only 9 of these could death be attributed to the gallstone disease. New diagnostic methods and types of treatment for jaundiced patients have been developed during recent years. To justify fully these diagnostic and therapeutic modalities, knowledge of the prognosis for the various causes of jaundice is essential.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1984

Differential diagnosis of jaundice: a pocket diagnostic chart.

Based on extensive clinical and clinical chemical information (107 different items) from 1002 jaundiced patients, we developed a diagnostic algorithm which was evaluated on a test sample of another 110 jaundiced patients. A primary classification into categories of obstructive jaundice (probability of obstruction greater than or equal to 0.80), non-obstructive jaundice (probability of obstruction less than or equal to 0.20), and of doubtful causes of jaundice (probability of obstruction: 0.20-0.80) was attempted. Among 234 patients in the data base who were classified as obstructive, 220 (94%) proved to be so, as did 36 (97%) of 37 in the test sample. The corresponding figures for non-obstructive jaundice were 463 (96%) of 483 patients correctly classified in the data base and 47 (92%) of 51 patients in the test sample. Altogether 69% of the patients in the data base and 75% of those in the test sample were correctly classified, in 27% and 20% the cause of jaundice was doubtful, and only 4% and 5%, respectively, were misclassified. A slight majority of the patients in whom the algorithmic diagnoses were doubtful proved obstructive. A close correlation was found between the preliminary diagnoses made by the algorithm and by the clinicians. A secondary classification of the patients by the algorithm into benign versus malignant causes of obstructive jaundice performed equally well in the data base and the test sample.

Cholestasis↗
PubMed1983

Oral testosterone load related to liver function in men with alcoholic liver cirrhosis.

The relation between liver function and an oral testosterone load was examined in 42 consecutive patients with alcoholic liver cirrhosis. Administration of an oral load of 400 mg micronized free testosterone increased the serum concentration of testosterone (range, 31.9-694.4 nmol/l; median, 140.8 nmol/l) in male patients with alcoholic liver cirrhosis to significantly (P less than 0.01) higher levels than in male subjects without liver disease (range, 25.4-106.6 nmol/l; median, 61.5 nmol/l). The increase of testosterone after the load (log delta testosterone) in patients correlated inversely with galactose elimination capacity (r = 0.54; P less than 0.001), serum albumin (r = -0.53; P less than 0.001), plasma factor II + VII + X (r = 0.62; P less than 0.001), indocyanine green clearance (r = -0.71; P less than 0.001), and hepatic blood flow (r = -0.61; P less than 0.01) and correlated directly with wedged-to-free hepatic vein pressure (r = +0.54; P less than 0.01). The increase of testosterone after the load did not correlate significantly with sex hormone-binding globulin (r = +0.35; P greater than 0.05). It is concluded that the hepatic extraction of testosterone is significantly decreased in patients with alcoholic cirrhosis. This decrease seems to be due to decreased liver function, decreasing hepatic blood flow, and increased portosystemic shunting. Oral testosterone loading may therefore be of prognostic significance in patients with alcoholic liver cirrhosis.

Administration, Oral↗
PubMed1983

Peritoneovenous shunt in treatment of ascites in patients with cirrhosis. A preliminary report with special reference to pathophysiology.

Peritoneovenous shunts (LeVeen type) were implanted in seven patients with cirrhosis complicated by ascites refractory to diuretic treatment. Three patients died of gastrointestinal bleeding and hepatic coma 1 to 7 weeks after the shunt implantation. The patients who died were those with the most severely impaired liver and kidney function. In two of the four surviving patients (observation time, 5-24 months) the shunt was patent during the observation time, and ascites disappeared. In the other two the shunt closed, in one patient repeatedly following several re-implantations. Enhanced urinary sodium excretion was observed in patients with patent shunts. After disappearance of ascites, the splanchnic venous pressures became less deranged. Long-term change in plasma volume or circulating albumin mass could not be detected. A patent shunt increases the drainage from the peritoneal cavity, but detectable increment in the overall lymph drainage was only found in a patient with a very low pre-shunt value. The findings do not support the 'overflow' theory of ascites formation but rather the 'lymph imbalance' theory. For clinical evaluation of peritoneovenous shunting in the treatment of ascites a controlled clinical trial is essential.

Aged↗
PubMed1983

The accuracy of the clinical diagnosis in acute hepatitis and alcoholic liver disease. Clinical versus morphological diagnosis.

Microfilms were prepared from the case histories of 357 consecutive patients submitted to liver biopsy for the first time so that all information after the time of the liver biopsy was erased. The microfilms were assessed by four clinicians, and the pre-biopsy diagnostic proposals were graded according to the degree of certainty and were compared with the results of the liver biopsies. Out of 357 patients, 200 had a history of alcoholism, of whom 172 had alcohol-induced changes in the liver biopsies: 80 cases of alcoholic cirrhosis, 84 cases of steatosis, and 8 cases of alcoholic hepatitis without cirrhosis. In 65 of the 80 patients with biopsy-verified alcoholic cirrhosis the clinical pre-biopsy diagnosis was in agreement with the histological findings. In 51 cases in which the clinical diagnosis of alcoholic cirrhosis was given as moderately certain or very certain, 4 clinically incorrect diagnoses occurred. No incorrect diagnoses occurred in the 35 cases in which the clinicians claimed the greatest diagnostic accuracy. In the 84 patients with steatosis in the liver biopsies the clinicians felt uncertain or moderately certain about all but 2 patients, and 14 incorrect diagnoses occurred. In none of the 8 patients with histological alcoholic hepatitis without cirrhosis was a correct clinical diagnosis made. The clinical pre-biopsy diagnosis of acute hepatitis was in agreement with the results of the liver biopsies in 52 out of 57 patients. In 51 cases in which the clinical diagnosis of acute hepatitis was given as moderately certain or very certain, 1 clinically incorrect diagnosis occurred.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Adolescent↗
PubMed1983

Main causes of death in cirrhosis.

The main causes of 436 deaths among 532 patients with cirrhosis followed up for up to 16 years constituted liver failure (24%), liver failure with gastrointestinal bleeding (13%), gastrointestinal bleeding (14%), primary liver cell carcinoma (4%), other liver-related causes (2%), infections (7%), cardiovascular diseases (22%), extrahepatic malignancies (9%), and other non-liver-related causes (5%). Totally, 57% died of liver-related causes. A high frequency of liver-related death was found among patients with a short observation time, high biochemical activity, pronounced change in liver architecture, ascites, and other signs of a poor prognosis at the time of diagnosis. The findings favoured the hypothesis that cirrhosis of the liver is a disease with an initial active and a subsequent inactive phase. Half of the patients were treated with prednisone, but this had no detectable influence on the distribution of causes of or on the frequency of single causes of death as infections or gastrointestinal bleeding. The group of patients responding favourably to prednisone treatment with regard to survival (non-alcoholic women without ascites) showed causes of death not different from those of the total material.

Bacterial Infections↗
PubMed1983

Ultrasonography, computed tomography, and cholescintigraphy in suspected obstructive jaundice--a prospective comparative study.

In order to compare their capacity to visualize the bile ducts, ultrasonography, computed tomography, and cholescintigraphy were performed in 56 consecutive jaundiced patients in whom extrahepatic cholestasis was clinically suspected. The predictions as to the patency of the large bill ducts were compared with the final diagnoses made on the basis of direct cholangiography together with autopsy, biopsy, operative findings, and the clinical course. Thirty-nine patients (70%) had obstructed bile ducts, and 17 (30%) had patent large bile ducts. Using a simple scoring scale with 112 points as the maximum, ultrasonography obtained 72 points, computed tomography received 56 points, and cholescintigraphy totalled 37 points. Nonsignificant trends were found in favor of ultrasonography as compared with computed tomography and of computed tomography as compared with cholescintigraphy (p greater than 0.05), whereas ultrasonography was significantly better than cholescintigraphy (p = 0.01). However, because computed tomography is expensive and may imply a higher number of secondary direct cholangiographies than ultrasonography, we recommend ultrasonography as the first choice for noninvasive bile duct visualization. Computed tomography is an alternative method, whereas cholescintigraphy cannot be recommended.

Cholangiography↗
PubMed1982

Prednisone treatment of chronic liver disease. I. Chronic aggressive hepatitis as a therapeutic marker.

A liver biopsy material comprising 477 biopsies from 477 patients included in a prospective, unblinded, randomized trial of treatment of cirrhosis with prednisone has been re-evaluated using new and more restrictive histological criteria for the diagnosis of cirrhosis and chronic aggressive hepatitis (CAH). The material was divided according to the likelihood of cirrhosis being present: (A) cirrhosis (287 patients), (B) probably cirrhosis (101 patients) and (C) compatible with but not diagnostic for cirrhosis (89 patients). Each group was further divided according to the presence (I) or absence (II) of CAH. A total of 98 patients fulfilled the histological criteria for CAH. The effect of prednisone concerning survival was evaluated in each group. In the total group of patients with CAH a significant beneficial effect of prednisone was found (p = 0.04). Among these patients the subgroup with cirrhosis in addition (group I A) also showed a significant effect of prednisone, while groups I B and I C only had a trend towards a beneficial effect (p = 0.44 and p = 0.36, respectively). In patients without CAH in the biopsy (Group II, A + B + C), no effect of prednisone was seen although a trend towards a harmful effect was found in patients with cirrhosis (Group II A). Control patients with CAH in all three subgroups had an insignificantly shorter survival than patients without CAH. All the CAH groups significantly more often included female patients with no history of alcoholism and a lower frequency of spider naevi. In addition, the CAH groups were more active as judged by biochemical and histological variables. It was further disclosed that the presence of large piecemeal necroses indicated a favourable effect of prednisone treatment, while alcoholism, ascites and male sex acted as indicators for an unfavourable treatment effect.

Biopsy↗
PubMed1982

Prednisone and chronic liver disease. II. Clinical versus morphological criteria for selection of patients for prednisone treatment.

A prospective, unblinded, randomized trial of treatment of cirrhosis and chronic aggressive hepatitis (CAH) with prednisone included 484 patients who were divided using both the clinical criteria: non-alcoholic females without ascites, and the morphological criterion: presence of a liver biopsy showing CAH. A total of 164 patients (34%) satisfied the three clinical criteria and biopsies from 95 patients (20%) showed CAH. By a cross-tabulation method between the two sets of criteria, four groups were formed. Evaluation of the treatment effect by means of relative death rate showed that the clinical criteria identified both a group of patients with a beneficial effect of prednisone (p less than 0.05) and a group with a harmful effect of the treatment (p less than 0.05). Patients with CAH also had a significant beneficial treatment effect, but patients without CAH showed only an insignificantly harmful effect of treatment. Patients fulfilling both sets of criteria had a beneficial effect of prednisone (p less than 0.05) and patients lacking both sets had a significantly harmful treatment effect. A significantly better survival was found in patients satisfying the clinical criteria without CAH in the biopsy than in patients with CAH and not fulfilling the clinical criteria (p = 0.03). In both the groups of patients with disagreement between the two sets of criteria, a trend towards a beneficial effect of prednisone was found. It is concluded that the simple clinical criteria in comparison with the histological criteria identify a larger group of patients with a beneficial effect of treatment.

Chronic Disease↗
PubMed1982

Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography and transhepatic cholangiography in patients with suspected obstructive jaundice. A randomized study.

To establish principles for choosing between endoscopic retrograde and percutaneous transhepatic cholangiography, we randomized 52 consecutive jaundiced patients with clinically suspected obstructive jaundice. The bile ducts were visualized in 85% by the endoscopic and in 84% by the transhepatic route. A conclusive diagnosis was reached in 89% and 68% of the patients, respectively, but the difference is not significant (0.10 less than P less than 0.20). If the planned type of cholangiography failed, the other method was tried. By comparing the total numbers of investigations, a conclusive diagnosis was achieved in 91% by endoscopic and 69% by transhepatic route, which is significantly different (P less than 0.05). We therefore prefer to do endoscopic cholangiography initially with transhepatic cholangiography as the complementary method.

Adult↗