Background: Derangement of liver blood tests (LBT) is frequent in patients with Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). We aimed to evaluate (a) the prevalence of deranged LBT as well as their association with (b) clinical severity at admission and (c) 30-day outcomes among the hospitalized patients with COVID-19. Methods: Consecutive patients with COVID-19 hospitalized in the regional referral center over the 12-month period were included. Clinical severity of COVID-19 at hospital admission and 30-day outcomes (need for intensive care, mechanical ventilation, or death) were analyzed. Results: Derangement of LBT occurred in 2854/3812 (74.9%) of patients, most frequently due to elevation of AST (61.6%), GGT (46.1%) and ALT (33.4%). Elevated AST, ALT, GGT and low albumin were associated with more severe disease at admission. However, in multivariate Cox regression analysis, when adjusted for age, sex, obesity and presence of chronic liver disease, only AST remained associated with the risk of dying (HR 1.5081 and 2.1315, for elevations 1–3 × ULN and >3 × ULN, respectively) independently of comorbidity burden and COVID-19 severity at admission. Patients with more severe liver injury more frequently experienced defined adverse outcomes. Conclusions: Deranged LBTs are common among patients hospitalized with COVID-19 and might be used as predictors of adverse clinical outcomes.

Prediction of short-term mortality in patients with acute decompensation of liver cirrhosis could be improved. We aimed to develop and validate two machine learning (ML) models for predicting 28-day and 90-day mortality in patients hospitalized with acute decompensated liver cirrhosis. We trained two artificial neural network (ANN)-based ML models using a training sample of 165 out of 290 (56.9%) patients, and then tested their predictive performance against Model of End-stage Liver Disease-Sodium (MELD-Na) and MELD 3.0 scores using a different validation sample of 125 out of 290 (43.1%) patients. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) for predicting 28-day mortality for the ML model was 0.811 (95%CI: 0.714- 0.907; p < 0.001), while the AUC for the MELD-Na score was 0.577 (95%CI: 0.435–0.720; p = 0.226) and for MELD 3.0 was 0.600 (95%CI: 0.462–0.739; p = 0.117). The area under the ROC curve (AUC) for predicting 90-day mortality for the ML model was 0.839 (95%CI: 0.776- 0.884; p < 0.001), while the AUC for the MELD-Na score was 0.682 (95%CI: 0.575–0.790; p = 0.002) and for MELD 3.0 was 0.703 (95%CI: 0.590–0.816; p < 0.001). Our study demonstrates that ML-based models for predicting short-term mortality in patients with acute decompensation of liver cirrhosis perform significantly better than MELD-Na and MELD 3.0 scores in a validation cohort.

Background: Liver involvement in Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been recognised. We aimed to investigate the correlation of non-invasive surrogates of liver steatosis, fibrosis and inflammation using transient elastography (TE) and FibroScan-AST (FAST) score with (a) clinical severity and (b) 30-day composite outcome of mechanical ventilation (MV) or death among patients hospitalized due to COVID-19. Method: Patients with non-critical COVID-19 at admission were included. Liver stiffness measurement (LSM) and controlled attenuation parameter (CAP) were assessed by TE. Clinical severity of COVID-19 was assessed by 4C Mortality Score (4CMS) and need for high-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) oxygen supplementation. Results: 217 patients were included (66.5% males, median age 65 years, 4.6% with history of chronic liver disease). Twenty-four (11.1%) patients met the 30-day composite outcome. Median LSM, CAP and FAST score were 5.2 kPa, 274 dB/m and 0.31, respectively, and neither was associated with clinical severity of COVID-19 at admission. In multivariate analysis FAST > 0.36 (OR 3.19, p = 0.036), 4CMS (OR 1.68, p = 0.002) and HFNC (OR 7.03, p = 0.001) were independent predictors of adverse composite outcome. Conclusion: Whereas LSM and CAP failed to show correlation with COVID-19 severity and outcomes, FAST score was an independent risk factor for 30-day mortality or need for MV.

BACKGROUND Alveolar echinococcosis (AE) is a slowly progressive parasitic disease that primarily affects the liver and resembles primary or secondary liver neoplasms. Differentiating AE from other primary or secondary liver malignancies is of paramount importance, due to differing therapeutic approaches. The disease is uncommon in developed countries. Initial extrahepatic manifestation mimicking a primary biliary neoplasm is extremely rare. A broad differential diagnosis and low disease prevalence make the diagnosis of primary biliary AE extremely challenging. CASE REPORT We present a 32-year-old male patient with perihilar AE and no significant past medical history. The initial clinical presentation and radiological findings were compatible with the diagnosis of perihilar cholangiocarcinoma (Klatskin tumor). The patient subsequently underwent extensive invasive diagnostic procedures, including endoscopic ultrasound and endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography, which led to choledochal perforation and biliary leakage, necessitating urgent surgical procedure, along with exploration, evacuation of enlarged lymph nodes, and subsequent histopathological examination. None of the procedures provided definitive evidence of malignancy. Only an ultrasound-guided percutaneous biopsy followed by histopathological examination revealed AE. Albendazole treatment and close follow-up were initiated. Subsequently, the patient experienced recurrent episodes of acute cholangitis. Recurrent cholangitis and perihilar biliary involvement, precluding radical surgical resection, necessitated liver transplantation. Ultimately, the patient underwent orthotopic liver transplantation from a brain-dead donor, with a favorable outcome. CONCLUSIONS Liver transplantation is a definitive treatment option for selected patients with perihilar liver involvement precluding radical resection of parasitic mass and recurrent episodes of acute cholangitis.

Patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) are at risk of developing metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD). We investigated the prevalence of compensated advanced chronic liver disease (cACLD) and steatosis in patients with T2D using the new non-invasive diagnostic methods of shear wave measurements (SWMs) and attenuation (ATT) measurements in comparison with those of vibration-controlled transient elastography (VCTE) and the controlled attenuation parameter (CAP), which served as the reference methods. Among 214 T2D patients, steatosis at any grade and cACLD were revealed in 134 (62.6%) and 19 (8.9%) patients, respectively. SWMs showed a high correlation with VCTE (Spearman’s ρ = 0.641), whereas SWMs produced lower (mean of −0.7 kPa) liver stiffness measurements (LSMs) overall. At a LSM of >11.0 kPa (Youden), SWMs had an AUROC of 0.951 that was used to diagnose cACLD (defined as a LSM of >15 kPa through VCTE) with 84.2% sensitivity and 96.4% specificity. The performance of ATT measurements in diagnosing liver steatosis at any grade (defined as the CAP of ≥274 dB/m) was suboptimal (AUROC of 0.744 at the ATT measurement cut-off of >0.63 dB/cm/MHz (Youden) with 59% sensitivity and 81.2% specificity). In conclusion, the prevalence of liver steatosis and previously unrecognized cACLD in patients with T2D is high and SWMs appear to be a reliable diagnostic method for this purpose, whereas further investigation is needed to optimize the diagnostic performance of ATT measurements.