Shared decision making in transplantation: How patients see their role in the decision process of accepting a donor liver

Sanna op den Dries, Coby Annema, Aad P. van den Berg, Adelita V. Ranchor, Robert J. Porte – 24 May 2014 – At the time of the organ offer for transplantation, donor‐related risks such as disease transmission and graft failure are weighed against the patient's risk of remaining on the waiting list. The patient's commonly inactive role in decision making and the timing and extent of donor‐specific risk information have been discussed in the medical literature. This is the first study revealing the opinions of liver patients on these issues.

Time of hepatocellular carcinoma recurrence after liver resection and alpha‐fetoprotein Are important prognostic factors for salvage liver transplantation

Sanghoon Lee, Choon Hyuck David Kwon, Jong Man Kim, Jae‐Won Joh, Seung Woon Paik, Bong‐Wan Kim, Hee‐Jung Wang, Kwang‐Woong Lee, Kyung‐Suk Suh, Suk‐Koo Lee – 23 May 2014 – Salvage liver transplantation (LT) is considered a feasible option for the treatment of recurrent hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). We performed this multicenter study to assess the risk factors associated with the recurrence of HCC and patient survival after salvage LT.

Autocrine vascular endothelial growth factor signaling promotes cell proliferation and modulates sorafenib treatment efficacy in hepatocellular carcinoma

Sui Peng, Ye Wang, Hong Peng, Dong Chen, Shunli Shen, Baogang Peng, Minhu Chen, Riccardo Lencioni, Ming Kuang – 22 May 2014 – Tumor cells express vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) that can activate VEGF receptors (VEGFRs) on or within tumor cells to promote growth in an angiogenesis‐independent fashion; however, this autocrine VEGF pathway has not been reported in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Sorafenib, an angiogenic inhibitor, is the only drug approved for use in advanced HCC patients. Yet the treatment efficacy is diverse and the mechanism behind it remains undetermined.

Treatment response in the PIVENS trial is associated with decreased hedgehog pathway activity

Cynthia D. Guy, Ayako Suzuki, Manal F. Abdelmalek, James L. Burchette, Anna Mae Diehl, for the NASH CRN – 22 May 2014 – Hedgehog (Hh) ligand production by ballooned hepatocytes drives nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) progression in mice. The NIDDK‐sponsored PIVENS trial (NCT00063622) showed that vitamin E (VitE) improved NASH. We investigated whether VitE treatment and improvement in NASH were associated with changes in Hh pathway activity.

Dual role of B7 costimulation in obesity‐related nonalcoholic steatohepatitis and metabolic dysregulation

Antonios Chatzigeorgiou, Kyoung‐Jin Chung, Ruben Garcia‐Martin, Vasileia‐Ismini Alexaki, Anne Klotzsche‐von Ameln, Julia Phieler, David Sprott, Waldemar Kanczkowski, Theodora Tzanavari, Mohktar Bdeir, Sibylle Bergmann, Marc Cartellieri, Michael Bachmann, Polyxeni Nikolakopoulou, Andreas Androutsellis‐Theotokis, Gabriele Siegert, Stefan R. Bornstein, Michael H. Muders, Louis Boon, Katia P.

Etanercept blocks inflammatory responses orchestrated by TNF‐α to promote transplanted cell engraftment and proliferation in rat liver

Preeti Viswanathan, Sorabh Kapoor, Vinay Kumaran, Brigid Joseph, Sanjeev Gupta – 21 May 2014 – Engraftment of transplanted cells is critical for liver‐directed cell therapy, but most transplanted cells are rapidly cleared from liver sinusoids by proinflammatory cytokines/chemokines/receptors after activation of neutrophils or Kupffer cells (KCs). To define whether tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF‐α) served roles in cell‐transplantation–induced hepatic inflammation, we used the TNF‐α antagonist, etanercept (ETN), for studies in syngeneic rat hepatocyte transplantation systems.

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