Anna Conti, Simona Scala, Paola D'Agostino, Elena Alimenti, Daniele Morelli, Barbara Andria, Angela Tammaro, Chiara Attanasio, Floriana Della Ragione, Vincenzo Scuderi, Floriana Fabbrini, Maurizio D'Esposito, Ernesto Di Florio, Lucio Nitsch, Fulvio Calise, Antonio Faiella – 27 December 2006 – Ischemia‐reperfusion injury (IRI) causes up to 10% of early liver failures in humans and can lead to a higher incidence of acute and chronic rejection. So far, very few studies have investigated wide gene expression profiles associated with the IRI process.

Daniel Shouval – 27 December 2006

Douglas M. Heuman, Anastasios A. Mihas, Adil Habib, HoChong S. Gilles, R. Todd Stravitz, Arun J. Sanyal, Robert A. Fisher – 27 December 2006 – Priority for “sickest first” liver transplantation (LT) in the United States is determined by the model for end‐stage liver disease (MELD). MELD is a good predictor of short‐term mortality in cirrhosis, but it can overestimate risk when international normalized ratio (INR) is artificially elevated by anticoagulation. An alternate prognostic index omitting INR is needed in this situation.

James D. Perkins – 27 December 2006 – With improved survival after liver transplantation (LT), the referral of older candidates has increased. The increasing demand for, and the decreased supply of, liver donors makes careful preoperative cardiac risk assessment imperative. There is a paucity of information regarding the cardiac characteristics of patients being referred for LT in the current era.

Srinath Chinnakotla, Douglas M. Smith, Rana Domiati‐Saad, Edward D. Agura, David L. Watkins, George Netto, Tadahiro Uemura, Edmund Q. Sanchez, Marlon F. Levy, Goran B. Klintmalm – 27 December 2006 – Graft‐versus‐host disease (GVHD) after liver transplantation is rare but associated with a very high mortality (over 85%). Most treatments focus on increasing immunosuppression, addition of antibody preparations such as OKT3 and antithymocyte globulin to eliminate the donor lymphocytes, and supporting myelopoiesis by use of cytokines. However, the results are very poor.

Jan Petrasek, Milan Jirsa, Jan Sperl, Libor Kozak, Pavel Taimr, Julius Spicak, Karel Filip, Pavel Trunecka – 27 December 2006 – Fulminant Wilson's disease (WD) is almost invariably fatal, and liver transplantation is the only life‐saving treatment. Decompensated chronic WD usually responds to chelation therapy. Our aim was to validate 3 published scoring systems for deciding between chelation treatment and liver transplantation in patients with chronic decompensated and fulminant WD.

Ye Htun Oo, James Neuberger – 27 December 2006

Ying Luo, Chung Mau Lo, Cindy K. Cheung, George K. Lau, Sheung Tat Fan, John Wong – 27 December 2006 – Both animal and human studies have demonstrated the adoptive transfer of immunity against hepatitis B virus (HBV) through liver transplantation that may be attributed to the presence of HBV‐specific immunocompetent cells of donor origin in liver grafts.

Lananh N. Nguyen, Momoko H. Furuya, Lawrence A. Wolfraim, Anthony P. Nguyen, Matthew S. Holdren, Jean S. Campbell, Belinda Knight, George C. T. Yeoh, Nelson Fausto, W. Tony Parks – 22 December 2006 – Oval cells are hepatocytic precursors that proliferate in late‐stage cirrhosis and that give rise to a subset of human hepatocellular carcinomas. Although liver regeneration typically occurs through replication of existing hepatocytes, oval cells proliferate only when hepatocyte proliferation is inhibited.

Eric Lévesque, Hugo Girard, Kim Journault, Johanie Lépine, Chantal Guillemette – 22 December 2006 – UDP‐glucuronosyltransferase 1A1 (UGT1A1) is involved in a wide range of biological and pharmacological processes because of its critical role in the conjugation of a diverse array of endogenous and exogenous compounds. We now describe a new UGT1A1 isoform, referred to as isoform 2 (UGT1A1_i2), encoded by a 1495‐bp complementary DNA isolated from human liver and generated by an alternative splicing event involving an additional exon found at the 3′ end of the UGT1A locus.