Mansour A. Parsi – 31 August 2010

Marc Oria, Nicolas Chatauret, Laia Chavarria, Jordi Romero‐Giménez, Lluis Palenzuela, Benjamin Pardo‐Yules, José Antonio Arranz, Guillermo Bodega, Núria Raguer, Juan Córdoba – 31 August 2010 – Experimental models of hepatic encephalopathy (HE) are limited by difficulties in objectively monitoring neuronal function. There are few models that examine a well‐defined neuronal pathway and lack the confounding effects of anesthetics. Motor‐evoked potentials (MEPs) assess the function of the motor tract, which has been shown to be impaired in patients with cirrhosis.

Tetsuji Fujita – 31 August 2010

Robert J. Clifford, Jinghui Zhang, Daoud M. Meerzaman, Myung‐Soo Lyu, Ying Hu, Constance M. Cultraro, Richard P. Finney, Jenny M. Kelley, Sol Efroni, Sharon I. Greenblum, Cu V. Nguyen, William L. Rowe, Sweta Sharma, Gang Wu, Chunhua Yan, Hongen Zhang, Young‐Hwa Chung, Jeong A. Kim, Neung Hwa Park, Il Han Song, Kenneth H. Buetow – 31 August 2010 – Primary liver cancer is the third most common cause of cancer‐related death worldwide, with a rising incidence in Western countries. Little is known about the genetic etiology of this disease.

Jeffrey D. Browning, Jonathan C. Cohen, Helen H. Hobbs – 31 August 2010

Toshiharu Matsuura, Yuji Soejima, Tomoaki Taguchi – 31 August 2010 – Congenital absence of the portal vein (CAPV) with an extrahepatic portosystemic shunt is a rare malformation; the completely absent type, Abernethy malformation type I, is especially rare. Liver transplantation for CAPV type I has been recently recognized as the only curative operation, but few reports have been published so far; meanwhile, auxiliary partial orthotopic liver transplantation (APOLT) has been proposed to be a very effective option, especially for pediatric patients.

Neehar D. Parikh, Daniela Ladner, Michael Abecassis, Zeeshan Butt – 31 August 2010 – Living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) decreases the shortage of liver grafts for patients in need of a liver transplant, but it involves 2 patients: a recipient and a living donor. Despite the magnitude of the procedure for LDLT donors, only a few studies have investigated the effect of LDLT on the quality of life (QOL) of donors. We performed a systematic search of the MEDLINE database to identify peer‐reviewed articles assessing QOL in adults after LDLT donation.

Philip Hilgard, Monia Hamami, Amr El Fouly, André Scherag, Stefan Müller, Judith Ertle, Till Heusner, Vito R. Cicinnati, Andreas Paul, Andreas Bockisch, Guido Gerken, Gerald Antoch – 31 August 2010 – Radioembolization has been demonstrated to allow locoregional therapy of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma not eligible for transarterial chemoembolization or other local therapies. The aim of this study was to validate evidence of the safety and efficacy of this treatment in a European sample of patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

Fei Qi, Jianbo Song, Hanshuo Yang, Wei Gao, Ning‐ai Liu, Bo Zhang, Shuo Lin – 31 August 2010 – The matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) family of proteins degrades extracellular matrix (ECM) components as well as processes cytokines and growth factors. MMPs are involved in regulating ECM homeostasis in both normal physiology and disease pathophysiology. Here we report the critical roles of mmp23b in normal zebrafish liver development.

Anisha A. Gupte, Joey Z. Liu, Yuelan Ren, Laurie J. Minze, Jessica R. Wiles, Alan R. Collins, Christopher J. Lyon, Domenico Pratico, Milton J. Finegold, Stephen T. Wong, Paul Webb, John D. Baxter, David D. Moore, Willa A. Hsueh – 31 August 2010 – Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a common complication of obesity that can progress to nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), a serious liver pathology that can advance to cirrhosis. The mechanisms responsible for NAFLD progression to NASH remain unclear.