Walid M. El Moghazy, Mohammed S. Hedaya, Toshimi Kaido, Hiroto Egawa, Shinji Uemoto, Yasutsugu Takada – 24 December 2008 – The aim of this study was to compare the Cavitron ultrasonic surgical aspirator (CUSA) with bipolar cautery (BP) to CUSA with a radiofrequency coagulator [TissueLink (TL)] in terms of efficacy and safety for hepatic transection in living donor liver transplantation. Twenty‐four living liver donors (n = 12 for each group) were randomized to undergo hepatic transection using CUSA with BP or CUSA with TL.

Olivier de Rougemont, Philipp Dutkowski, Markus Weber, Pierre‐Alain Clavien – 24 December 2008 – On the basis of the growing evidence from randomized trials that routine prophylactic drainage is unnecessary in liver surgery or even harmful in chronic liver disease, we challenged the concept of prophylactic drainage in orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT). Since September 2006, we omitted drains in every patient who underwent OLT, regardless of the procedure. Thirty‐five cadaveric OLTs were performed during a 12‐month period.

Robert T. Russell, Irene D. Feurer, Panarut Wisawatapnimit, C. Wright Pinson – 24 December 2008 – Health utility instruments assess patients' valuation of specific health states, which can be converted to quality‐adjusted life years for cost‐utility analysis. Data from the EQ‐5D, a generic health‐related quality of life questionnaire from EuroQoL, can be reported as 5 health status scores or as a single health preference weight (HPW). US population–based HPWs were published by Shaw and colleagues in 2005 (Med Care 2005;43:203‐220).

G. Alex Bishop, Rohan B. H. Williams – 24 November 2008

Alphonse E. Sirica, Michael H. Nathanson, Gregory J. Gores, Nicholas F. LaRusso – 24 November 2008 – In June 2008, the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) sponsored the Henry M. and Lillian Stratton Basic Research Single‐Topic Conference on the Pathobiology of Biliary Epithelia and Cholangiocarcinoma, which was held in Atlanta, GA. Attendees from 12 different countries participated in this conference, making it a truly international scientific event.

Guadalupe Garcia‐Tsao, Chirag R. Parikh, Antonella Viola – 24 November 2008 – Acute renal failure (ARF), recently renamed acute kidney injury (AKI), is a relatively frequent problem, occurring in approximately 20% of hospitalized patients with cirrhosis. Although serum creatinine may underestimate the degree of renal dysfunction in cirrhosis, measures to diagnose and treat AKI should be made in patients in whom serum creatinine rises abruptly by 0.3 mg/dL or more (≥26.4 μmol/L) or increases by 150% or more (1.5‐fold) from baseline.

Rajeev Sharma, Pallawi Torka – 24 November 2008

Ulrich Thalheimer, Jaime Bosch, David Patch, Andrew Burroughs – 24 November 2008

Francisco Javier Cubero, Natalia Nieto – 24 November 2008 – Because of the contribution of ethanol and polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) to alcoholic liver disease, we investigated whether chronic ethanol administration and arachidonic acid (AA) could synergistically mediate Kupffer cell (KC) activation and modulate the stellate cell (HSC) fibrogenic response.

Tatsuya Orimo, Hidenori Ojima, Nobuyoshi Hiraoka, Shigeru Saito, Tomoo Kosuge, Tatsuhiko Kakisaka, Hideki Yokoo, Kazuaki Nakanishi, Toshiya Kamiyama, Satoru Todo, Setsuo Hirohashi, Tadashi Kondo – 24 November 2008 – Histological differentiation is a major pathological parameter associated with poor prognosis in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and the molecular signature underlying HCC differentiation may involve key proteins potentially affecting the malignant characters of HCC.