Robert P. Myers, Hude Quan, James N. Hubbard, Abdel Aziz M. Shaheen, Gilaad G. Kaplan – 28 January 2009 – Risk‐adjusted health outcomes are often used to measure the quality of hospital care, yet the optimal approach in patients with liver disease is unclear. We sought to determine whether assessments of illness severity, defined as risk for in‐hospital mortality, vary across methods in patients with cirrhosis. We identified 258,731 patients with cirrhosis hospitalized in the Nationwide Inpatient Sample between 2002 and 2005.

Bulent Degertekin, Anna S. Lok – 28 January 2009

Roberto J. Groszmann – 28 January 2009

Coralie Pallier, Christophe Rodriguez, Rozenn Brillet, Patrice Nordmann, Christophe Hézode, Jean‐Michel Pawlotsky – 28 December 2008 – In patients with hepatitis B e antigen‐negative chronic hepatitis B, adefovir dipivoxil administration selects variants bearing reverse transcriptase rtN236T and/or rtA181V/T substitutions in 29% of cases after 5 years.

Ann‐Sofi Duberg, Rolf Hultcrantz – 28 December 2008

Vijay Shah – 28 December 2008

Arnaud Galbois, Dominique Thabut, Khalid A. Tazi, Marika Rudler, Morvarid Shir Mohammadi, Dominique Bonnefont‐Rousselot, Hind Bennani, Annie Bezeaud, Zera Tellier, Cécile Guichard, Nicolas Coant, Eric Ogier‐Denis, Richard Moreau, Didier Lebrec – 28 December 2008 – High‐density lipoproteins (HDL) are known to neutralize lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Because patients with cirrhosis have lower HDL levels, this may contribute to LPS‐induced ex vivo monocyte overproduction of proinflammatory cytokines.

Muhammad A. Sohail, Ardeshir Z. Hashmi, Wyel Hakim, Azuma Watanabe, Alexander Zipprich, Roberto J. Groszmann, Jonathan A. Dranoff, Natalie J. Torok, Wajahat Z. Mehal – 28 December 2008 – The Rho/ROCK pathway is activated in differentiated hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) and is necessary for assembly of actin stress fibers, contractility, and chemotaxis. Despite the importance of this pathway in HSC biology, physiological inhibitors of the Rho/ROCK pathway in HSCs are not known.

Tsunehiro Shintani, Takuya Iwabuchi, Tomoyoshi Soga, Yuichiro Kato, Takehiro Yamamoto, Naoharu Takano, Takako Hishiki, Yuki Ueno, Satsuki Ikeda, Tadayuki Sakuragawa, Kazuo Ishikawa, Nobuhito Goda, Yuko Kitagawa, Mayumi Kajimura, Kenji Matsumoto, Makoto Suematsu – 28 December 2008 – Carbon monoxide (CO) is a stress‐inducible gas generated by heme oxygenase (HO) eliciting adaptive responses against toxicants; however, mechanisms for its reception remain unknown.

Lopa Mishra, Tanuj Banker, Joseph Murray, Stephen Byers, Arun Thenappan, Aiwu Ruth He, Kirti Shetty, Lynt Johnson, E. P. Reddy – 28 December 2008 – Although the existence of cancer stem cells (CSCs) was first proposed over 40 years ago, only in the past decade have these cells been identified in hematological malignancies, and more recently in solid tumors that include liver, breast, prostate, brain, and colon. Constant proliferation of stem cells is a vital component in liver tissues.