Rajpurohit et al reported factors predictive of esophageal candidiasis in patients with cirrhosis. The authors are from Kasturba Medical College and Prasanna School of Public Health in Manipal, India.
Patient selection: adult with cirrhosis
Frequency of esophageal candidiasis: 3.3%
Factors predictive of esophageal candidiasis:
(1) low serum creatinine (< 0.86 mg/dL)
Many patients with cirrhosis have a catabolic state with muscle breakdown, eventually leading to a low serum creatinine. The serum albumin was 2.77 +/- 0.6 in patients with Candidiasis, suggesting protein malnutrition. This raises the possibility of the immune dysfunction of malnutrition. The reported absolute lymphocyte count for patients with candidiasis may be an error (13,400 per µL).
Other factors:
(1) platelet distribution width < 17.45% (p value 0.14).
Predictors reported for non-cirrhotic patients:
(1) diabetes mellitus
(2) immunosuppression or immunodeficiency
(3) therapy with corticosteroids
(4) HIV
Performance:
• The area under the ROC curve for serum creatinine is 0.72.
