Yi‐Wen Huang, Sien‐Sing Yang, Szu‐Chieh Fu, Ting‐Chuan Wang, Cheng‐Kai Hsu, Ding‐Shinn Chen, Jui‐Ting Hu, Jia‐Horng Kao – 11 June 2014 – The effect of diabetes on cirrhosis, its decompensation, and their time relationship in chronic hepatitis C (CHC) patients remains unclear. We conducted a nation‐wide cohort study by using the Taiwanese National Health Insurance Research Database, which is comprised of data from >99% of the entire population. Among having randomly sampled 1 million enrollees, 6,251 adult CHC patients were identified from 1997 to 2009.

Fen Qiang Li, Gi‐Young Ko, Kyu‐Bo Sung, Dong‐Il Gwon, Heung Kyu Ko, Jong Woo Kim, Eunsil Yu – 10 June 2014 – The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of transfemoral liver biopsy with a Quick‐Core biopsy needle in select living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) recipients. Eight LDLT recipients underwent 9 transfemoral liver biopsy sessions. Six patients had undergone modified right lobe (mRL) LDLT, and 2 patients had undergone dual–left lobe LDLT.

Eriks Smagris, Soumik BasuRay, John Li, Yongcheng Huang, Ka‐man V. Lai, Jesper Gromada, Jonathan C. Cohen, Helen H. Hobbs – 10 June 2014 – A sequence polymorphism (rs738409, I148M) in patatin‐like phospholipid domain containing protein 3 (PNPLA3) is strongly associated with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), but the mechanistic basis for this association remains enigmatic. Neither ablation nor overexpression of wild‐type PNPLA3 affects liver fat content in mice, whereas hepatic overexpression of the human 148M transgene causes steatosis.

Eriks Smagris, Soumik BasuRay, John Li, Yongcheng Huang, Ka‐man V. Lai, Jesper Gromada, Jonathan C. Cohen, Helen H. Hobbs – 10 June 2014 – A sequence polymorphism (rs738409, I148M) in patatin‐like phospholipid domain containing protein 3 (PNPLA3) is strongly associated with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), but the mechanistic basis for this association remains enigmatic. Neither ablation nor overexpression of wild‐type PNPLA3 affects liver fat content in mice, whereas hepatic overexpression of the human 148M transgene causes steatosis.

Jacinta A. Holmes, Gail V. Matthews, Alexander J. Thompson, on behalf of the CHARIOT Study Group – 10 June 2014

Georg Auzinger, Christopher Willars, Robert Loveridge, Thomas Best, Andre Vercueil, Andreas Prachalias, Michael A. Heneghan, Julia Wendon – 10 June 2014

Joel Wedd, Kiran M. Bambha, Matt Stotts, Heather Laskey, Jordi Colmenero, Jane Gralla, Scott W. Biggins – 10 June 2014 – The Model for End‐Stage Liver Disease (MELD) score has reduced predictive ability in patients with cirrhosis and MELD scores ≤ 20. We aimed to assess whether a 5‐stage clinical model could identify liver transplantation (LT) candidates with low MELD scores who are at increased risk for death. We conducted a case‐control study of subjects with cirrhosis and MELD scores ≤ 20 who were awaiting LT at a single academic medical center between February 2002 and May 2011.

Edoardo G. Giannini, Alessandro Cucchetti, Alessandro Vitale – 10 June 2014

Kangsheng Tu, Jiachu Li, Vikas K. Verma, Chunsheng Liu, Daniel D. Billadeau, Georg Lamprecht, Xiaoyu Xiang, Luyang Guo, Renumathy Dhanasekaran, Lewis R. Roberts, Vijay H. Shah, Ningling Kang – 10 June 2014 – Liver microenvironment is a critical determinant for development and progression of liver metastasis. Under transforming growth factor beta (TGF‐β) stimulation, hepatic stellate cells (HSCs), which are liver‐specific pericytes, transdifferentiate into tumor‐associated myofibroblasts that promote tumor implantation (TI) and growth in the liver.

Julio D. Vorobioff, Roberto J. Groszmann – 9 June 2014 – Pharmacological treatment of portal hypertension (PH) has been exclusively devoted to gastroesophageal varices–related events at different frameworks, including prophylactic, emergency, or preventive therapy. The goals of treatment are to avoid the first bleeding episode, stop active bleeding, and prevent bleeding recurrence, respectively. The objective of preprimary prophylaxis (PPP) is to avoid variceal development, and therefore it necessarily deals with patients with cirrhosis at earlier stages of the disease.