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Thierry Poynard

Publications and source records attributed to Thierry Poynard.

95 records · Page 6Linked to original sources

Ethanol-induced inhibition of cytokine release and protein degranulation in human neutrophils.

Ethanol impairs immune responses in humans and animal models, in vivo and in vitro. In particular, ethanol inhibits some key functions of human polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMN). We investigated the impact of ethanol on cytokine production by highly purified PMN. In a time- and concentration-dependent manner, ethanol inhibited the production of interleukin (IL)-8 protein and mRNA and also hindered tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) release by modulating the expression of the TNF-alpha-converting enzyme involved in TNF-alpha shedding. This disruption of PMN cytokine release by ethanol may contribute to the increased risk of infection in alcoholic patients. Degranulation of hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) was also impaired by a clinically relevant ethanol concentration (0.8%), an action that may delay the repair of alcoholic liver damage. These findings suggest that ethanol may modulate three major cytokines involved in alcoholic liver diseases, IL-8, TNF-alpha, and HGF, via three different mechanisms.

Cell Degranulation↗

Prevalence of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and variability of diagnostic criteria.

OBJECTIVES: The main objectives of this study were to assess whether the use of different definitions of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) could influence measurements of its prevalence and characterize the patient population fulfilling these different diagnostic criteria. METHOD: A telephone survey was carried out by contacting 8,221 subjects aged >or=18 Years representative of the French population. A "screening" questionnaire based on three algorithms of IBS classification (Manning, with or without a notion of a minimal duration of symptoms, Rome I and Rome II) was used by specialised inquirers. RESULTS: Twenty three percent of the subjects interviewed stated that they had suffered from abdominal pain during the previous 12 Months. The prevalence of IBS considerably varied, depending on the diagnostic criteria used: 12% based on Manning criteria without reference to the duration of symptoms; 2.5% if the notion of duration of symptoms was added to the Manning criteria, and 2.1% and 1.1% based on the Rome I and Rome II criteria, respectively (the latter including the same notion of duration). In total, 212 subjects (2.6%) met at least one of the criteria including a minimal duration of symptoms, with a predominance for women (sex-ratio close to 2). CONCLUSION: The prevalence of IBS is strongly dependent on the classification algorithm employed. The requirement of a minimum duration of symptoms eliminates IBS in a large number of subjects complaining of abdominal disorders. Once these methodological variations were taken into account, the prevalence of IBS in France was found to be comparable to that published in international literature.

Abdominal Pain↗

Risk factors for liver fibrosis progression in patients with chronic hepatitis C.

The major hepatological consequence of HCV infection is the progression to cirrhosis and its potential complications. Several factors have been clearly shown to be associated with fibrosis progression rate: duration of infection, age, male sex, consumption of alcohol, HIV coinfection and low CD4 count. As age and duration of infection increases, the risk of fibrosis increases and the impact of treatment (IFN) decreases. In conclusion, fibrosis progression has a progressive acceleration, sex, age and consumption of alcohol are strongly involved in this progression; the possibility to assess with non-aggressive biochemical markers the fibrosis stage will probably allow in the future to identify other factors related to fibrosis progression.

Age Factors↗