Background
Pyoderma gangrenosum is a serious cutaneous complication seen in approximately 1 % of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Oral corticosteroids are the mainstay treatment, ...although the evidence supporting their use is weak.
Aims
The purpose of this study was to investigate the characteristics of pyoderma gangrenosum associated with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis and which treatments are prescribed in Spanish clinical practice.
Methods
In this retrospective, observational study, the medical records from all patients with IBD and a diagnosis of pyoderma gangrenosum attended by the gastroenterology departments of 12 Spanish hospitals were reviewed. Data on patient demographics and characteristics, underlying IBD and treatment, and pyoderma gangrenosum characteristics, treatment, and outcome were collected and analyzed.
Results
The data from 67 patients were analyzed (41 61.2 % women, 41 61.2 % with Crohn’s disease, 25 37.3 % with ulcerative colitis, and 1 1.5 % with indeterminate disease). The underlying disease was in remission in approximately one-third of patients at the time of presentation of pyoderma gangrenosum. Healing was achieved in all patients (in 3 without any systemic therapy). Oral corticosteroids were taken by 51 patients (76.1 %), almost always as first-line treatment, although definitive healing was attained in 19 (28.4 %). Biologic agents such as infliximab and adalimumab were taken by 31 patients (46.3 %) at some point (first-line in 6 patients 9.0 %), with definitive healing in 29 patients (93.5 %).
Conclusions
Oral corticosteroid therapy remains the most common treatment for pyoderma gangrenosum associated with inflammatory bowel disease. Biologic therapies such as infliximab and adalimumab should also be considered.
It is not known whether the pig liver is capable of functioning efficiently when transplanted into a primate, neither is there experience in transplanting a liver from a transgenic pigs expressing ...the human complement regulator human complement regulator decay accelerating factor (h-DAF) into a baboon. The objective of this study was to determine whether the porcine liver would support the metabolic functions of non-human primates and to establish the effect of hDAF expression in the prevention of hyperacute rejection of porcine livers transplanted into primates.
Five orthotopic liver xenotransplants from pig to baboon were carried out: three from unmodified pigs and two using livers from h-DAF transgenic pigs.
The three control animals transplanted with livers from unmodified pigs survived for less than 12 hr. Baboons transplanted with livers from h-DAF transgenic pigs survived for 4 and 8 days. Hyperacute rejection was not detected in the baboons transplanted with hDAF transgenic pig livers; however, it was demonstrated in the three transplants from unmodified pigs. Baboons transplanted with livers from h-DAF transgenic pigs were extubated at postoperative day 1 and were awake and able to eat and drink. In the recipients of hDAF transgenic pig livers the clotting parameters reached nearly normal levels at day 2 after transplantation and remained normal up to the end of the experiments. In these hDAF liver recipients, porcine fibrinogen was first detected in the baboon plasma 2 hr postreperfusion, and was present up to the end of the experiments. One animal was euthanized at day 8 after development of sepsis and coagulopathy, the other animal arrested at day 4, after an episode of vomiting and aspiration. The postmortem examination of the hDAF transgenic liver xenografts did not demonstrate rejection.
The livers from h-DAF transgenic pigs did not undergo hyperacute rejection after orthotopic xenotransplantation in baboons. When HAR is abrogated, the porcine liver maintains sufficient coagulation and protein levels in the baboon up to 8 days after OLT.
