Keyword: metabolic syndrome

Extracting Data from Medical Records for Monitoring Diseases and Generating Medical Alerts

Background: Automated data processing is creating and implementing technology that automatically processes data. This computer tool is recommended for doctors because it supports their everyday work, assists in medical diagnosis, and enhances patient care. The aim of this paper is to propose an informatic tool that can extract the values of some parameters of interest from blood test sheets in order to get medical alerts and to monitor the chronic disease. Methods: An application, written in Python, was developed Results: The computer tool extracted automatically the values of glucose, triglycerides, HDL-cholesterol, total cholesterol, and LDL-cholesterol from medical sheets (text-based file or graphic file, respectively), and saved them in a database, accessed and represented in a graphic form the most recent values of these parameters; alerts according to metabolic syndrome criteria and Framingham risk score were generated. Conclusions: This tool contributes to the management of the medical process, saving precious time and helping the doctor in detecting current or future health problems.

Non-alcoholic Steatohepatitis Diagnosis and Treatment – Current Concepts

NAFLD (Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease) is a condition of high importance due to its increased prevalence, estimated at 24% of the global population, and its potential progression to advanced liver disease, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma. Onequarter of NAFLD patients have NASH (non-alcoholic steatohepatitis), which is histologically described as liver steatosis, inflammation, fibrosis, hepatocyte injury, and death. Metabolic disruptions, such as obesity, diabetes, and dyslipidemia, are considered to have a great impact on the development of NASH. Patients may have NAFLD for a long time before progressing into NASH, which highlights the necessity of periodic imaging and biochemical evaluation of the liver, and also presents an optimal window of therapeutic intervention. The challenge in developing treatment for NASH stems from the slow progression of the disease and the reliance on sequential biopsies as the diagnostic and staging tools. Several non-invasive tests have been developed as potential future alternatives to the current invasive gold standard. This review aims to assess the current available methods of diagnosis and treatment targeting inflammation.