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Objective: A growing interest in functional neurological disorders (FND) has led to the development of specialized clinics. This study aimed to better understand the structure and role of such clinics., Methods: Data were retrospectively collected from clinical records at three national referral centers, two specifically for motor FND and one for FND in general. Data were for 492 consecutive patients referred over a 9- to 15-month period: 100 from the United Kingdom clinic, 302 from the Swiss clinic, and 90 from the Canadian clinic. Data included symptom subtype and duration, comorbid pain and fatigue, disability, and treatment recommendations., Results: The mean age of the 492 patients was 44 years, and most (73%) were female. Most had a prolonged motor FND (mean symptom duration of 6 years); 35% were not working because of ill health, 26% received disability benefits, and up to 38% required a care giver for personal care. In the Swiss cohort, 39% were given a diagnosis of another somatic symptom disorder rather than an FND diagnosis. Pain was common in the United Kingdom (79%) and Canada (56%), as was fatigue (48% and 47%, respectively). Most patients (61%) were offered physiotherapy; referral to neuropsychiatry or psychology differed across centers (32%-100%)., Conclusions: FND specialty clinics have an important role in ensuring correct diagnosis and appropriate treatment. Most patients with motor FND require specialized neurophysiotherapy. Patients readily accepted an integrated neuropsychiatric approach. Close collaboration between FND clinics and acute neurology facilities might improve early detection of FND and could improve outcomes.

These guidelines on the management of primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) were commissioned by the British Society of Gastroenterology liver section. The guideline writing committee included medical representatives from hepatology and gastroenterology groups as well as patient representatives from PSC Support. The guidelines aim to support general physicians, gastroenterologists and surgeons in managing adults with PSC or those presenting with similar cholangiopathies which may mimic PSC, such as IgG4 sclerosing cholangitis. It also acts as a reference for patients with PSC to help them understand their own management. Quality of evidence is presented using the AGREE II format. Guidance is meant to be used as a reference rather than for rigid protocol-based care as we understand that management of patients often requires individual patient-centred considerations., Competing Interests: Competing interests: DT – involvement in clinical trials in PSC (NGM, Takeda, Shire), funding from British Liver Trust, PSC Partners, PSC Support, EASL, SMR – Involvement in clinical trials in PSC and sits on the advisory board for FALK and Intercept. GH - medical adviser for PSC Support, speaker fees and educational support from Falk Pharma., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2019. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

We sought to identify factors that are predictive of liver transplantation or death in patients with primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC), and to develop and validate a contemporaneous risk score for use in a real-world clinical setting. Analyzing data from 1,001 patients recruited to the UK-PSC research cohort, we evaluated clinical variables for their association with 2-year and 10-year outcome through Cox-proportional hazards and C-statistic analyses. We generated risk scores for short-term and long-term outcome prediction, validating their use in two independent cohorts totaling 451 patients. Thirty-six percent of the derivation cohort were transplanted or died over a cumulative follow-up of 7,904 years. Serum alkaline phosphatase of at least 2.4 × upper limit of normal at 1 year after diagnosis was predictive of 10-year outcome (hazard ratio [HR] = 3.05; C = 0.63; median transplant-free survival 63 versus 108 months; P < 0.0001), as was the presence of extrahepatic biliary disease (HR = 1.45; P = 0.01). We developed two risk scoring systems based on age, values of bilirubin, alkaline phosphatase, albumin, platelets, presence of extrahepatic biliary disease, and variceal hemorrhage, which predicted 2-year and 10-year outcomes with good discrimination (C statistic = 0.81 and 0.80, respectively). Both UK-PSC risk scores were well-validated in our external cohort and outperformed the Mayo Clinic and aspartate aminotransferase-to-platelet ratio index (APRI) scores (C statistic = 0.75 and 0.63, respectively). Although heterozygosity for the previously validated human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-DR*03:01 risk allele predicted increased risk of adverse outcome (HR = 1.33; P = 0.001), its addition did not improve the predictive accuracy of the UK-PSC risk scores. Conclusion: Our analyses, based on a detailed clinical evaluation of a large representative cohort of participants with PSC, furthers our understanding of clinical risk markers and reports the development and validation of a real-world scoring system to identify those patients most likely to die or require liver transplantation., (© 2018 The Authors. Hepatology published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases.)