Objective Little information is available on the relationship between the clinical course of ulcerative colitis (UC) and the outcomes of pregnancy and delivery in pregnant Japanese women. The aim of this retrospective study was to determine the factors that influence pregnancy and childbirth in middle-aged UC patients.

Methods We studied 53 pregnancies in 45 pregnant women with UC who delivered at our department. They included 41 pregnancies that started while in UC remission and 12 pregnancies that started in the UC active phase. The following factors were evaluated: 1) the clinical course of UC; 2) the frequency and details of abnormal pregnancy/abnormal delivery; and 3) the course of pregnancy/delivery. We compared the clinical features, course of UC, and details of treatment between women with a normal pregnancy/delivery and those with an abnormal delivery.

Results A comparison of the remission and acute groups showed lower clinical activity indices (CAIs) during pregnancy in the remission group and significantly higher rates of recurrence/exacerbation in the active group (75%) than in the remission group (7.3%). The respective CAIs in the first, second, and third trimesters were 3 and 6, 3 and 5, and 3 and 4, in the remission and active groups, respectively. Live infants were delivered in 51 (96%) pregnancies, with 7 (17%) abnormal pregnancies in the remission group and 4 (33.3%) in the active group (p>0.05). Abnormal delivery occurred in 16 of 53 (30.1%) pregnancies, and the rate was higher in the remission group than in the active group (p>0.05). In both groups, the most common abnormal event during pregnancy was delivery of low-birth-weight infants. Delivery was normal in 37 cases and abnormal in 16 cases. A multivariate analysis showed that a shorter UC disease duration (odds ratio=1.16) and higher CAI in the first trimester (odds ratio=1.49) were associated with an increased risk of abnormal pregnancy.

Conclusion Our findings demonstrated that the clinical course of UC, as evaluated by the CAI, during pregnancy influenced the outcome of pregnancy and delivery.

Objective We investigated the possible factors for predicting the future progression to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) from hypovascular nodules detected in the hepatobiliary phase of gadolinium-ethoxybenzyl-diethylenetriamine pentaacetic acid-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (Gd-EOB-DTPA-MRI).

Methods A total of 91 hypovascular nodules detected by Gd-EOB-DTPA-MRI in 28 patients without any past history of treatment for HCC were retrospectively examined. The nodules were categorized into those with and without HCC progression, then comparisons were made to identify any factors possibly related to a progression to HCC in each case. In addition, we performed a receiver operating characteristics (ROC) analysis to determine the cut-off value for the initial nodule size for predicting HCC progression within 12 months.

Results The observation period of the 28 patients was 1,172.6±95.6 (mean±standard error) days. The number of hypovascular nodules that changed to hypervascular ones was 15 (16.5%), and the cumulative incidence of hypervascular transformation was 7.1% at 12 months and 12.7% at 24 months. Of all 91 hypovascular nodules, 33 in 18 patients were diagnosed as HCC based on hypervascular transformation and/or size enlargement, while the remaining 58 did not progress to HCC. There was no significant difference regarding the background characteristics between the HCC progressed and non-progressed groups according to a multivariate analysis, or between the patients who had nodules that progressed to HCC and those with nodules that did not progress to HCC. Regarding HCC progression at 12 months, the area under the ROC (AUROC) had a level of 0.745 and showed that an initial nodule cut-off size of 9.5 mm (sensitivity, 57.9%; specificity, 87.3%) was predictive.

Conclusion In patients without a past HCC treatment history, it is difficult to determine whether hypovascular nodules have a high risk of progression to HCC based on background factors alone.

Objective Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) have been reported to have beneficial effects in patients with IgA nephropathy (IgAN). Although DHA and EPA have different mechanisms of action, no study to date has assessed their individual actions in patients with IgAN. This study therefore analyzed the effects administering DHA in addition to EPA for the treatment of IgAN.

Methods Twenty-one IgAN patients who were being treated with EPA (1,800 mg/day) were switched to EPA (1,860 mg/day) and DHA (1,500 mg/day). The changes in their clinical parameters from 6 months before to 6 months after switching treatment were analyzed.

Results The triglyceride levels did not change during treatment with EPA alone, but tended to decrease-although not to a statistically significant extent-after the switch. The patients' low-density-lipoprotein cholesterol, blood pressure, proteinuria, and hematuria levels were similar before and after switching. The estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) tended to decrease during EPA therapy, but became stable after switching and the median %⊿eGFR changed from -7.354% during EPA therapy to +1.26% during the 6 months after switching to EPA and DHA therapy (p=0.00132), and renal the function remained stable for another 6 months. Moreover, the median %⊿eGFR during the 6 months after switching was significantly higher in comparison to IgAN patients who were treated with EPA alone as a control (-3.26%, p=0.0361). No clinical parameters were independently associated with a stable renal function without switching to DHA/EPA.

Conclusion The addition of DHA to EPA stabilized the renal function of IgAN patients, and it seemed that there were pleiotropic effects beyond the improvement of the clinical parameters.