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Obinna O Oleribe,1 Jenny Momoh,2 Benjamin SC Uzochukwu,3 Francisco Mbofana,4 Akin Adebiyi,5 Thomas Barbera,6 Roger Williams,7 Simon D Taylor-Robinson6 1Excellence and Friends Management Care Centre (EFMC), Abuja, Nigeria; 2Department of Epidemiology and Community Medicine, Federal University Lafia, Nasarawa State, Nigeria; 3Department of Community Medicine, College of Medicine, University of Nigeria, Enugu, Nigeria; 4National AIDS Commission, Maputo, Mozambique; 5University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria; 6Liver Unit, Department of Surgery and Cancer, St Mary’s Campus, Imperial College London, London W2 1PG, UK; 7Institute of Hepatology, London SE5 9NT, UKCorrespondence: Obinna O OleribeExcellence and Friends Management Care Centre, P.O. Box 200 PSIN, Dutse, Abuja 901101, NigeriaEmail obinna.oleribe@expertmanagers.orgIntroduction: Healthcare systems in Africa suffer from neglect and underfunding, leading to severe challenges across the six World Health Organization (WHO) pillars of healthcare delivery. We conducted this study to identify the principal challenges in the health sector in Africa and their solutions for evidence-based decisions, policy development and program prioritization.Methods: The study was conducted as part of a recent African Epidemiological Association Meeting in Maputo, Mozambique with participants drawn from 11 African countries, Cuba, Portugal and the United Kingdom. Participants were divided into 10 groups, consisting of 7 to 10 persons each. Brainstorming approaches were used in a structured, modified nominal group process exercise to identify key challenges and strategies to mitigate healthcare service challenges in Africa. Identified challenges and solutions were prioritised by ranking 1–5, with 1 most important and 5 being least important.Results: The first three challenges identified were inadequate human resources (34.29%), inadequate budgetary allocation to health (30%) and poor leadership and management (8.45%). The leading solutions suggested included training and capacity building for health workers (29.69%), increase budgetary allocation to health (20.31%) and advocacy for political support and commitment (12.31%).Conclusion: The underdeveloped healthcare systems in Africa need radical solutions with innovative thought to break the current impasse in service delivery. For example, public-private initiatives should be sought, where multinational companies extracting resources from Africa might be encouraged to plough some of the profits back into healthcare for the communities providing the workforce for their commercial activities. Most problems and their solutions lie within human resources, budget allocation and management. These should be accorded the highest priority for better health outcomes.Keywords: Africa, healthcare management, human resources, health systems

Munirah Alsaleh,1 Thomas A Barbera,1 Helen L Reeves,2 Matthew E Cramp,3 Stephen Ryder,4,5 Hani Gabra,1,6 Kathryn Nash,7 Yi-Liang Shen,1,8 Elaine Holmes,1 Roger Williams,9 Simon D Taylor-Robinson11Division of Surgery and Cancer, Imperial College London, London; 2Northern Institute for Cancer Research, Medical School, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK; 3Liver Unit, Derriford Hospital, Plymouth, Devon , UK; 4Nottingham Digestive Diseases Centre, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK; 5NIHR Biomedical Research Unit, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham, UK; 6Early Clinical Development, IMED Biotech Unit, AstraZeneca, Cambridge, UK; 7Liver Unit, Southampton General Hospital, Southampton, Hampshire, UK; 8Department of Radiation Oncology, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and Chang Gung University, Taoyuan, Taiwan; 9Institute of Hepatology, UKBackground: Outside South-East Asia, most cases of cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) have an obscure etiology. There is often diagnostic uncertainty. Metabolomics using ultraperformance liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS) offers the portent to distinguish disease-specific metabolic signatures. We aimed to define such a urinary metabolic signature in a patient cohort with sporadic CCA and investigate whether there were characteristic differences from those in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), metastatic secondary liver cancer, pancreatic cancer and ovarian cancer (OCA).Methods: Spot urine specimens were obtained from 211 subjects in seven participating centers across the UK. Samples were collected from healthy controls and from patients with benign hepatic disease (gallstone, biliary strictures, sphincter of Oddi dysfunction and viral hepatitis) and patients with malignant conditions (HCC, pancreatic cancer, OCA and metastatic cancer in the liver). The spectral metabolite profiles were generated using a UPLC-MS detector and data were analyzed using multivariate and univariate statistical analyses.Results: The greatest class differences were seen between the metabolic profiles of disease-free controls compared to individuals with CCA with altered acylcarnitine, bile acid and purine levels. Individuals with benign strictures showed comparable urine profiles to patients with malignant bile duct lesions. The metabolic signatures of patients with bile duct tumors were distinguishable from patients with hepatocellular and ovarian tumors, but no difference was observed between CCA cases and patients with pancreatic cancer or hepatic secondary metastases.Conclusion: CCA causes subtle but detectable changes in the urine metabolic profiles. The findings point toward potential applications of metabonomics in early tumor detection. However, it is key to utilize both global and targeted metabonomics in a larger cohort for in-depth characterization of the urine metabolome in hepato-pancreato-biliary disease.Keywords: cholangiocarcinoma, metabolomics, diagnostic biomarkers

Munirah Alsaleh,1 Zoe Leftley,1 Thomas A Barbera,1 Paiboon Sithithaworn,2 Narong Khuntikeo,2 Watcharin Loilome,2 Puangrat Yongvanit,2 I Jane Cox,3 Nittaya Chamodol,2 Richard RA Syms,4 Ross H Andrews,1,2 Simon D Taylor-Robinson1 1Division of Surgery and Cancer, Imperial College London, London W2 INY, UK; 2Cholangiocarcinoma Research Centre, Faculty of Medicine, Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen 40002, Thailand; 3Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine, King’s College London, London SE5 9NT, UK; 4Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK Abstract: Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is a tumor with increasing prevalence around the world. The prevalence of CCA is highest in East Asia and most significantly in the countries through which the Mekong River flows, owing to the presence of liver flukes, which are consumed in raw fish dishes. Outside Asia, the causes of bile duct cancers for the most part are unknown. In this review, we assess the current state of knowledge in both fluke-associated and sporadic CCA, from etiological, diagnostic, and treatment perspectives. Keywords: cholangiocarcinoma, etiology, diagnosis, treatment, bile ducts

A defining feature of resident gut macrophages is their high replenishment rate from blood monocytes attributed to tonic commensal stimulation of this site. In contrast, almost all other tissues contain locally maintained macrophage populations, which coexist with monocyte-replenished cells at homeostasis. In this study, we identified three transcriptionally distinct mouse gut macrophage subsets that segregate based on expression of Tim-4 and CD4. Challenging current understanding, Tim-4 + CD4 + gut macrophages were found to be locally maintained, while Tim-4-CD4 + macrophages had a slow turnover from blood monocytes; indeed, Tim-4 - CD4 - macrophages were the only subset with the high monocyte-replenishment rate currently attributed to gut macrophages. Moreover, all macrophage subpopulations required live microbiota to sustain their numbers, not only those derived from blood monocytes. These findings oppose the prevailing paradigm that all macrophages in the adult mouse gut rapidly turn over from monocytes in a microbiome-dependent manner; instead, these findings supplant it with a model of ontogenetic diversity where locally maintained subsets coexist with rapidly replaced monocyte-derived populations.