Salleh Ibrahim, Chao‐Long Chen, Chih‐Che Lin, Chin‐Hsiang Yang, Chih‐Chi Wang, Shih‐Ho Wang, Yeuh‐Wei Liu, Chee‐Chien Yong, Allan Concejero, Bruno Jawan, Yu‐Fan Cheng – 23 May 2006 – Complications in a donor are a distressing but inevitable occurrence, since graft procurement is a major undertaking. Although the technique for procurement has some similarities to hepatic resection, a donor is very unlike a patient with malignancy. The risk factors identified in these patients cannot be extrapolated to donors.

Christopher R. Lynch, Milan E. Folkers, William R. Hutson – 23 May 2006 – With data from the Women's Health Initiative indicating that estrogen plus progesterone are associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular events, many patients and practitioners are looking for alternative therapies to manage menopausal symptoms. One alternative is black cohosh, an herbal product used primarily to treat these symptoms. In recent years there have been several case reports associating this substance with hepatitis and fulminant hepatic failure.

Luca Aldrighetti, Carlo Pulitanò, Marcella Arru, Renato Finazzi, Marco Catena, Laura Soldini, Laura Comotti, Gianfranco Ferla – 18 May 2006 – Hepatic injury secondary to warm ischemia‐reperfusion (I/R) injury and alterations in haemostatic parameters are often unavoidable events after major hepatic resection. The release of inflammatory mediator is believed to play a significant role in the genesis of these events. It has been suggested that preoperative steroid administration may reduce I/R injury and improve several aspects of the surgical stress response.

Ichiro Tsunematsu, Yasuhiro Ogura, Kayoko Inoue, Akio Koizumi, Nobuhiko Tanigawa, Koichi Tanaka – 18 May 2006 – Adult‐to‐adult living donor liver transplantation (ALDLT) has been accepted as an important option for end‐stage liver disease, but information regarding the risk factors remains fragmentary. We aimed to establish a predictive model for 90‐day survival. In the first step, a total of 286 cases who had received primary ALDLT using a right lobe graft between 1998 and 2004 were randomly divided into 2 cohorts at a ratio of 2:1 (191 vs. 95 recipients).

Giorgio Ercolani, Gian Luca Grazi, Matteo Ravaioli, Massimo Del Gaudio, Matteo Cescon, Giovanni Varotti, Giovanni Ramacciato, Gaetano Vetrone, Matteo Zanello, Antonio Daniele Pinna – 18 May 2006 – Impact of hepatitis C virus (HCV) recurrence on long‐term outcome after orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) is highly variable, and the role of retransplantation is still debated. From 1996 to 2003, 131 OLT with histologically proven HCV recurrence and 6 months of follow‐up were retrospectively reviewed. One and 5‐yr overall survivals were 90.7 and 81.3%, respectively.

Jean F. Botha, Wendy J. Grant, Clarivet Torres, Angie K. Iverson, Debra L. Sudan, Byers W. Shaw, Alan N. Langnas – 18 May 2006 – Infants with short bowel syndrome (SBS) and associated liver failure are often referred for combined liver/intestinal transplantation. We speculated that in some young children, nutritional autonomy would be possible with restoration of normal liver function. Features we believed to predict nutritional autonomy include history of at least 50% enteral tolerance, age less than 2 yr, and no underlying intestinal disease.

Christophe Corpechot, Ahmed El Naggar, Armelle Poujol‐Robert, Marianne Ziol, Dominique Wendum, Olivier Chazouillères, Victor de Lédinghen, Daniel Dhumeaux, Patrick Marcellin, Michel Beaugrand, Raoul Poupon – 20 April 2006 – Noninvasive measurement of liver stiffness with transient elastography has been recently validated for the evaluation of hepatic fibrosis in chronic hepatitis C. The current study assessed the diagnostic performance of liver stiffness measurement (LSM) for the determination of fibrosis stage in chronic cholestatic diseases.

Carlo Giannini, Francesca Giannelli, Anna Linda Zignego – 20 April 2006

Sanaa M. Kamal, Khairy N. Moustafa, Jason Chen, Jutta Fehr, Azza Abdel Moneim, Khalifa E. Khalifa, Leila A. El Gohary, Amr H. Ramy, Mohamed A. Madwar, Jens Rasenack, Nezam H. Afdhal – 20 April 2006 – Spontaneous resolution of acute hepatitis C virus infection cannot be predicted, and chronic evolution of the disease occurs in a majority of cases. To assess the efficacy and safety of peginterferon alpha‐2b administered for 8, 12, or 24 weeks in patients with acute hepatitis C virus infection a total of 161 patients were identified with acute hepatitis C virus infection.

Tsutomu Fujii, Shuji Nomoto, Katsumi Koshikawa, Yasushi Yatabe, Osamu Teshigawara, Toshiaki Mori, Soichiro Inoue, Shin Takeda, Akimasa Nakao – 20 April 2006 – The pituitary tumor transforming gene 1 (PTTG1) protein is cell‐cycle regulated and is identified as a human securin that inhibits sister chromatid separation and is involved in transformation and tumorigenesis. PTTG1 has very low or undetectable expression in most normal human tissues, but it is abundantly expressed in malignant cell lines and pituitary tumors.