Does coated transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt improve thrombocytopenia in patients with liver cirrhosis?
There does not appear to be a significant improvement in thrombocytopenia in cirrhotic patients after TIPS placement, despite advances in TIPS stents. However, there may be a mild improvement in anemia after TIPS implantation.
Biphasic thyroiditis is common among women treated for hepatitis C with IFNα. Lower and higher pretreatment serum TSH are associated with greater likelihood of thyrotoxicosis and hypothyroidism, respectively. Antithyroid antibody levels were not available for the cohort, and thus we cannot clarify the role of pretreatment thyroid autoimmunity as a risk factor. Our results do show that readily identifiable patient characteristics are risk factors for specific patterns of IFN-induced thyroid dysfunction. These findings suggest that distinct mechanisms may underlie subtypes of thyroid dysfunction associated with immune-modulatory therapy for hepatitis C.