Background: Liver cirrhosis is the final stage of chronic liver disease. We aimed to evaluate non-invasive scores as predictors of complications and outcome in cirrhotic patients. Methods: A total of 150 cirrhotic patients were included. Models for end-stage liver disease (MELD), albumin-bilirubin (ALBI) score, neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), monocyte-lymphocyte ratio (MoLR), and neutrophil-lymphocyte-albumin ratio (NLA) scores were tested in relation to the development of complications and mortality using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Results: The ROC curve analysis showed (area under the curve) AUC values of NLR, NLA, ALBI, and MELD of 0.711, 0.730, 0.627, and 0.684, respectively, for short-term mortality. MELD, ALBI, and NLA scores showed a statistically significant correlation with hepatic encephalopathy (p = 0.000 vs. 0.014 vs. 0.040, respectively), and the MELD cut-off value of 16 had a sensitivity of 70% and a specificity of 52% (AUC: 0.671, 95% CI (0.577–0.765)). For the assessment of the presence of ascites, the AUC values for NLA and MoLR were 0.583 and 0.658, respectively, with cut-offs of 11.38 and 0.44. Conclusions: MELD, ALBI, and NLA are reliable predictors of hepatic encephalopathy. NLA and MoLR showed a significant correlation with the presence of ascites, and MELD, ALBI, NLR, and NLA have prognostic value to predict 30-day mortality in cirrhotic patients.

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection is usually asymptomatic or causes a mild mononucleosis-like syndrome, whereas severe symptoms are rarely reported. We report a case of a 70-year-old woman who was admitted to our center because of severe clinical presentation with anorexia, epigastric pain, nausea, postprandial vomiting, and significant weight loss. Esophagogastroduodenoscopy with biopsies showed ulcerative chronic gastritis with scattered large cells with inclusion bodies. Immunohistochemistry and polymerase chain reaction for CMV-DNA resulted positive. A gastric emptying of solid scintigraphy showed severe gastroparesis. The patient was discharged after 2 months of antiviral therapy completely asymptomatic. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case of CMV-related gastroparesis in an immunocompetent patient, successfully treated with antiviral therapy.

Introduction: Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is a chronic autoimmune disease with very heterogeneous clinical manifestations. There are not many studies which directly research the pain experienced by patients with SSc. Aim: Evaluation of pain in patients with verified systemic sclerosis; making comparison in the two subsets of SSc (diffuse and limited) and in the anti-centromere antibodies (ACA) and anti-topoisomerase-I antibodies (ATA) detected in patients. Material and methods: The study group included 42 patients with SSc. The research was conducted at the Institute of Rheumatology in Belgrade. Each patient was asked to complete the questionnaire, which included the questions about frequency, location and intensity of the pain. Two statistical methodologies were used in the data analysis: descriptive and analytical statistics. Results: Most of the patients (93%) confirmed they had some kind of pain . Arthralgia was the most common pain symptom (78,6%), 29 (69%) suffered from pain during Raynaud phenomenon, the back pain was found in 20 (47,6%), a headache in 13 (31%), the chest pain in 10 (23,8%), odynophagia in 9 (21,4%) and in 8 (19%) patients painful digital ulcers. The pain from digital ulcers was rated as the most intensive with the average value of 8,5/10. The patients with diffuse subset of SSc had a higher average intensity score of arthralgia (7,6), compared to those with limited SSc (5,5). The statistically significant difference in the frequency and intensity of the pain in the patients with anti-topoisomerase-I antibodies and the patients with anti-centromere antibodies was not found. Conclusion: Most of the patients suffer from some kind of pain. The most common pain was arthralgia, and the most intensive one was from digital ulcers, although it was the rarest. The pain frequency and intensity were not significantly different in patients with anti-topoisomerase-I and anti-centromere antibodies. There was a statisticaly significant difference in the average value of arthralgia intensity, between the patients with diffuse and the patients with limited SSc.