Advances in the Diagnosis and Management of Digestive System Diseases

A special issue of Diagnostics (ISSN 2075-4418). This special issue belongs to the section "Pathology and Molecular Diagnostics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2025 | Viewed by 415

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Department of Pathology, Geisinger Medical Center, 100 N Academy Ave, Danville, PA, USA
Interests: gastrointestinal pathology; liver pathology; pancreatic pathology; molecular pathology

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Although substantial advancements in the diagnosis and management of digestive system diseases have been achieved in recent years, we are still facing various challenges and dilemmas in dealing with these conditions in daily clinical practice.

To help understand and cope with these disorders, this Special Issue will focus on updates of pathogenesis, diagnosis criteria/consensus, and therapy guidelines, emphasizing efforts in tackling diagnosis and treatment difficulties.

SARS-CoV-2-induced injury in the digestive system is a significant component of COVID-19-caused mortality and mobility. Emerging microorganisms, especially drug-resistant ones, are increasingly identified in the digestive system and need special attention. Inflammatory diseases such as celiac disease, eosinophilic esophagitis/eosinophilic gastroenteritis, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), and inflammatory bowel syndrome are still a heavy burden in healthcare, with a need for new diagnostic workups/biomarkers, therapeutic modalities, and methods evaluating therapy response. Accurate and timely diagnosis and treatment of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) are still regarded as a challenging area, especially the effectiveness of preventing its progression into Barett's esophagus with currently available treatments. Inflammatory diseases of the liver, including hepatitis B virus infection and primary biliary and primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC), have insufficient therapy responses in a significant subset of patients. The annual incidences of esophageal adenocarcinoma and colon cancer have continuously increased in the past decade(s), especially in young adults, which necessitates early diagnosis and more effective surveillance strategies and calls for more precisive management of precursor lesions in Barrett's esophagus, IBD and PSC. Molecular monitoring of minimal residual disease (MRD) in managing diagnosed GI malignancies offers predictive and prognostic value. The optimization of treatment of early GI cancers such as pT1 colon cancer is still an unmet need. Liver transplantation is the treatment of choice for liver cancer and liver failure. While acute cellular rejection is amenable to immune suppressors, chronic rejection and antibody-mediated rejection in graft survival are not well understood and remain major challenges in liver transplantation.

We invite authors to contribute knowledge in pathogenesis, diagnosis, and advanced therapies for digestive system diseases.

Dr. Jialing Huang
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Diagnostics is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • digestive system
  • pathology
  • liver transplantation
  • diagnosis
  • therapy

Published Papers (1 paper)

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10 pages, 2168 KiB  
Case Report
Androgen-Induced, β-Catenin-Activated Hepatocellular Adenomatosis with Spontaneous External Rupture
by Jialing Huang, Towhid Ali, David M. Feldman and Neil D. Theise
Diagnostics 2024, 14(14), 1473; https://doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics14141473 - 9 Jul 2024
Viewed by 249
Abstract
Androgens have long been recognized as oncogenic agents. They can induce both benign and malignant hepatocellular neoplasms, including hepatocellular adenoma (HCA) and hepatocellular carcinoma, though the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Androgen-induced liver tumors are most often solitary and clinically silent. Herein, we reported [...] Read more.
Androgens have long been recognized as oncogenic agents. They can induce both benign and malignant hepatocellular neoplasms, including hepatocellular adenoma (HCA) and hepatocellular carcinoma, though the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Androgen-induced liver tumors are most often solitary and clinically silent. Herein, we reported an androgen-induced HCA complicated by spontaneous rupture. The patient was a 24-year-old male presenting with fatigue, diminished libido, radiology-diagnosed hepatocellular adenomatosis for 3 years, and sudden-onset, severe, sharp, constant abdominal pain for one day. He used Aveed (testosterone undecanoate injection) from age 17 and completely stopped one year before his presentation. A physical exam showed touch pain and voluntary guarding in the right upper quadrant of the abdomen. An abdominal CT angiogram demonstrated multiple probable HCAs, with active hemorrhage of the largest one (6.6 × 6.2 × 5.1 cm) accompanied by large-volume hemoperitoneum. After being stabilized by a massive transfusion protocol and interventional embolization, he underwent a percutaneous liver core biopsy. The biopsy specimen displayed atypical hepatocytes forming dense cords and pseudoglands. The lesional cells diffusely stained β-catenin in nuclei and glutamine synthetase in cytoplasm. Compared to normal hepatocytes from control tissue, the tumor cells were positive for nuclear AR (androgen receptor) expression but had no increased EZH2 (Enhancer of Zeste 2 Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 Subunit) protein expression. The case indicated that androgen-induced hepatocellular neoplasms should be included in the differential diagnosis of acute abdomen. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in the Diagnosis and Management of Digestive System Diseases)
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