Do fatigue and pruritus at onset identify a more aggressive subset of primary biliary cirrhosis?
Fatigue and/or pruritus at onset identify a subset of patients with primary biliary cirrhosis who preferentially are women, younger, with a particularly active disease, less responsive to ursodeoxycholic acid treatment, and more inclined to evolve to cirrhosis and its complications.
The detection of atherosclerotic plaque in the thoracic aorta by transesophageal echocardiography appears to be a marker for the identification of obstructive coronary artery disease and deserves further investigation.