Aleksandra Sokic Milutinovic

• University of Belgrade

Ulcerative colitis (UC) significantly impacts patients’ health-related quality of life (HRQOL). This study aimed to evaluate HRQOL and the factors affecting it, and the prevalence of anxiety, depression and alexythimia in patients with UC. This cross-sectional study included 248 UC patients (21 with proctitis, 63 with left-sided UC and 164 with ext...

Introduction: Acute severe ulcerative colitis (ASUC) represents a life-threatening medical emergency. One-third of ASUC patients are steroid non-responders. Our study aimed to create a new ASUC algorithm to predict corticosteroid response in the early course of the disease. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study included 103 patients with A...

Background Stress is a potentially significant risk factor for the occurrence and progression of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Methods The study analyzed the level of stress, anxiety, and depression in patients with Crohn’s disease (CD; n = 50) and ulcerative colitis (UC; n = 54) in comparison with non-IBD controls (n = 100), using Perceived S...

A retrospective study in patients who underwent video capsule endoscopy (VCE) between 2006 and 2016 was conducted in the Clinic for gastroenterology and Hepatology, University Clinical Center of Serbia. A total of 245 patients underwent VCE. In 198 patients the indication was obscure gastrointestinal bleeding (OGIB), with 92 patients having overt a...

Background Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) are chronic recurrent inflammatory diseases with partly understood etiology and pathogenesis. The course of IBD, both ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn`s disease (CD) is characterized by periods of relapse and remission with the possible occurrence of extraintestinal manifestations. Summary During the la...

Takayasu arteritis (TA) is a large vessel vasculitis affecting predominantly females below the age of 40. Patients with TA seem to be at increased risk for adverse pregnancy outcomes, resulting in mother or child complications. Although few studies analyzed the presence of antiphospholipid antibodies (APLA) in TA patients, an association between an...

A wide spectrum of extraintestinal manifestations (EIMs) can burden patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). EIMs contribute fairly to morbidity and mortality rates in IBD patients. Moreover, EIMs in IBD patients are so frequent that some suggest that IBD should be approached as a systemic disorder. Anemia is very common in IBD patients. The...

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), Crohn’s disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) are complex diseases whose etiology is associated with genetic and environmental risk factors, among which are diet and gut microbiota. To date, IBD is an incurable disease and the main goal of its treatment is to reduce symptoms, prevent complications, and improve n...

Background: Ultrasonography is a noninvasive, inexpensive, and widely available diagnostic tool. In the last two decades, the development of ultrasound techniques and equipment has significantly increased the usage of intestine ultrasound (US) in the assessment of the gastrointestinal tract in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Althou...

Background: Jaundice is a common clinical finding in clinical practice of hepatologists and general practitioners. It occurs when serum bilirubin levels exceed 3 mg/dL. Summary: In this review, we summarize the pathophysiological mechanism of jaundice, clinical approach to the patient with jaundice, and laboratory and imaging techniques. Clinica...

Background: Diarrhea is defined as the passage of loose stools and increase in stool frequency, weight, or volume. Diarrhea is an important health issue since it accounts for 2.5 million deaths in the world each year. Summary: Diarrhea can be acute, persistent, or chronic. Acute diarrhea (AD) is usually infectious, caused by viruses, less freque...

Background: Abdominal pain is a common symptom of gastroenterology examination. Chronic abdominal pain is present for >3 months. Summary: Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is one of the most common gastrointestinal diseases encountered by both gastroenterologists and general practitioners. GERD is usually a chronic disease presented with a...

Background: Anemia is present in almost 5% of adults worldwide and accompanies clinical findings in many diseases. Diseases of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract and liver are a common cause of anemia, so patients with anemia are often referred to a gastroenterologist. Summary: Anemia could be caused by various factors such as chronic bleeding, mal...

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in consecutive newly diagnosed patients with inflammatory bowel disease in a tertiary care referral center. The initial evaluation included patient-reported outcome for stool frequency subscore and rectal bleeding. Endoscopic activity was determined using the Mayo scoring system for ulcerative colitis...

Background Crohn's disease (CD) is chronic inflammatory bowel disease with different phenotypic characteristics influencing disease prognosis and therapeutic strategies. The aim of this pilot study was to analyze selected inflammatory and apoptotic markers in non-inflamed and inflamed samples of ileal mucosa of non-stricturing/non-penetrating (NS/N...

Background: This study analyzed poorly understood relationship of two overlapping conditions: metabolic syndrome (MeS) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), both associated with inflammation in the visceral adipose tissue. Methods: Newly diagnosed 104 IBD patients, of which 50 Crohn's disease (CD) and 54 ulcerative colitis (UC), and 45 non-IBD con...

Background and aims: Mucosal gene expression have not been fully enlightened in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Aim of this study was to define IL23A, IL17A, IL17F and TLR9 expression in different IBD phenotypes. Methods: Evaluation of mRNA levels was performed in paired non-inflamed and inflamed mucosal biopsies of newly diagnosed 50 Crohn's...

Objectives: The aim of the study was to evaluate associations between inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) presentation and variants in NOD2, TLR4, TNF-α, IL-6, IL-1β, and IL-RN genes in order to identify possible environmental factors that may affect IBD occurrence, investigate potential predictors for surgical treatment of IBD, and correlate the pre...

INTRODUCTION: Angiosarcomas are malignant tumors of vascular endothelium that may arise from different locations. Although primary hepatic angiosarcoma accounts for only 1.8% of primary liver tumors, it is the most common malignant mesenchymal tumor of the liver. We report a case of primary hepatic angiosarcoma with melena as an unusual initial man...

Introduction. Hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia (HHT) is a rare autosomal dominant disorder with estimated prevalence of one in 5,000 to 10,000. The disease has age-related penetrance and the HHT signs and symptoms occur and worsen with age. A diagnosis of HHT is based on the Curacao`s criteria. Case report. We report a case series of 6 patient...

Incidence of gastrointestinal bleeding in most populations is about 1 per 1,000 inhabitants. More than 65% of all bleeding episodes are associated with drug use. The most often involved are non-steroidal antiinflammatory drugs and low doses of acetyl-salicylic acid. The mortality within the first month after the bleeding episode is about 10-12%, an...

Objective: Meckel's diverticulum (MD) is the most common congenital anomaly of the gastrointestinal tract. Although a majority of patients remain asymptomatic, complications may occur in a subset of patients. MD is a rare cause of gastrointestinal bleeding (GIB) in adults. We aimed to clarify the possible role of capsule endoscopy (CE) in the iden...

Background and study aims: In recent years, many studies have demonstrated a proximal shift in the distribution of adenomas and colorectal cancers. The aim of this study was therefore to investigate whether there are differences in the incidence and anatomical distribution of adenomas and colorectal cancers spanning a 20 year time gap. Methods: We...

Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) plays a role in the pathogenesis of gastric cancer. The outcome of the infection depends on environmental factors and bacterial and host characteristics. Gastric carcinogenesis is a multistep process that is reversible in the early phase of mucosal damage, but the exact point of no return has not been identified. The...

Research on inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) highlighted genes involved in the regulation of inflammatory responses as contributors to disease pathogenesis. Objective of this study was to evaluate associations between IBD and variations in NOD2, TLR4, TNF-α, IL-6, IL-1β, IL-1RN genes, and to use obtained genetic data in predictive modeling. We geno...

Epidemiology is a study of disease variations by geography, population demographics and time. Temporal influences can manifest themselves as age effects, period effects, cohort effects, seasonal or monthly variations. The acquisition of Helicobacter pylori infection during early childhood and the ensuing risk for the future development of peptic ul...

Primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) is an immune-mediated chronic progressive inflammatory liver disease leading to destruction of small interlobular bile ducts. Sarcoidosis is a chronic disorder of unknown etiology characterized by non-caseous granulomas. We reported a 69-year-old female patient with abdominal pain, malaise, vertigo, headaches, hands...

Purpose: Duodenal tumors are rare and require a different management from that of esophagogastric neoplasia. The present study retrospectively analyses the endoscopic ultrasound (EUS) features of duodenal tumors of both epithelial and subepithelial origin. Materials and methods: During a 12 year period, all duodenal tumors with histologic confir...

Portal hypertension and development of esophageal varices is one of the major complications of liver cirrhosis. The aim of our study was to evaluate the possibility of the presence of esophageal varices and their size using biochemical and ultrasonography parameters in patients with alcoholic liver cirrhosis. We included in our study 86 patients (7...

Primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) is a chronic, progressive liver disease with elevated serum lipids. It remains unclear if hyperlipidemia increases the risk for atherosclerosis in PBC patients. Metabolic syndrome (MS) promotes the development of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease due to abdominal obesity and insulin resistance. The aim of this s...

Mastocytosis is a clonal neoplastic disorder of the mast cells. The clinical signs and symptoms of mastocytosis are heterogeneous ranging from indolent disease with a long-term survival to a highly aggressive neoplasm with survival of about 6 months. Systemic mastocytosis (SM) is characterized by mastocyte infiltration of one or more organs, with o...

The purpose of this study was to determine the frequency of angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) gene insertion/deletion (I/D) polymorphism and to investigate its role as a potential risk factor in patients with chronic pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer. Deletion polymorphism of the 287-bp fragment of intron 16 of the ACE gene results in higher lev...

We aimed to determine differences in gastroduodenal damage related to the presence of Helicobacter pylori (Hp) in patients starting long-term NSAID therapy. Seventy-one candidates for chronic NSAIDs therapy (33 Hp negative and 38 Hp positive) entered the study and underwent upper GI endoscopy before, and 8 and 16 weeks after, continuous NSAID thera...

It is now well established that Helicobacter pylori eradication can significantly modify the natural history of peptic ulcer disease. The aim of this study was to assess the frequency of duodenal ulcer among patients endoscopically examined for dyspeptic symptoms and analyse the disease time trend during two ten-year long distinctive retrospective...

Alpha-1-antitrypsin (AAT) is an important serine protease inhibitor in humans. Hereditary alpha-1-antitrypsin deficiency (AATD) affects lungs and liver. Liver disease caused by AATD in paediatric patients has been previously well documented. However, the association of liver disease with alpha-1-antitrypsin gene polymorphisms in adults is less clea...

To evaluate different biochemical markers and their ratios in the assessment of primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) stages. This study included 112 patients with PBC who underwent a complete clinical investigation. We analyzed the correlation (Spearman's test) between ten biochemical markers and their ratios with different stages of PBC. The discrimina...

To investigate the expression of different cytokeratins (CKs) in gastric epithelium of adult patients with chronic gastritis infected with Helicobacter pylori (H pylori) cagA+ strains. The expression of CK 7, 8, 18, 19 and 20 was studied immunohistochemically in antral gastric biopsies of 84 patients. All the CKs were immunostained in cagA+H pylori...

To assess long-term effects of Helicobacter pylori (H pylori) eradication on antral G cell morphology and function in patients with and without duodenal ulcer (DU). Consecutive dyspeptic patients referred to the endoscopy entered the study. Out of 39 H pylori positive patients, 8 had DU (H pylori +DU) and 31 gastritis (H pylori +G). Control groups...

Background/aims: Helicobacter pylori causes peptic ulcer disease and is involved in gastric cancer development. However, whether the presence of the bacterium in gastric mucosa influences clinical presentation of dyspeptic patients is still unclear. Material and methodology: Total of 99 consecutive dyspeptic patients referred to endoscopy entered t...

The expression of two Helicobacter pylori proteins, CagA and VacA, is associated with more severe pathogenesis and clinical outcomes of the infection. However, this association varies among geographical regions and ethnic groups. We therefore evaluated CagA and VacA seroprevalence in H. pylori-positive dyspeptic patients in Serbia and Montenegro. I...

Secretory leukocyte protease inhibitor (SLPI) represents a multifunctional protein of the gastric mucosa exerting anti-microbial and anti-inflammatory effects. Recently, a local down-regulation of antral SLPI expression in Helicobacter pylori (Hp)-infected healthy volunteers was demonstrated. To analyze mucosal SLPI expression in patients with vari...

As well as causing chronic gastritis, Helicobacter pylori predisposes patients to peptic ulcer disease and gastric cancer, and induces gastric functional disorders. The aim of our study was to investigate the effects of H. pylori eradication therapy on the morphological and functional recovery of gastric antral and corpus D cells in patients with c...