Marina Berenguer, Antonio Palau, Alberto Fernandez, Salvador Benlloch, Victoria Aguilera, Martín Prieto, Jose‐Miguel Rayón, Joaquín Berenguer – 18 April 2006 – There are unresolved issues regarding sustained virological response (SVR), tolerance and risk of rejection following antiviral therapy in liver transplantation (LT). The aim of our study was to determine efficacy, rejection risk and factors associated with SVR.

Noriyo Yamashiki, Yasuhiko Sugawara, Sumihito Tamura, Junichi Kaneko, Kayo Nojiri, Masao Omata, Masatoshi Makuuchi – 5 April 2006 – The selection of living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) recipients in regions where deceased donor liver transplantation (DDLT) is rarely performed might be different from that in other centers at which LDLT is an alternative option to DDLT. Records of adult (age ≥ 18 yr) patients referred to our center were reviewed to analyze the selection process of LDLT candidates. Among the 533 LDLT candidates, 165 (31%) were rejected due to recipient issues.

Nina Singh, Timothy L. Pruett, Sally Houston, Patricia Muñoz, Thomas V. Cacciarelli, Marilyn M. Wagener, Shahid Husain – 5 April 2006 – Retransplantation is a major risk factor for invasive aspergillosis in liver transplant recipients. However, the risk for invasive aspergillosis with time elapsed since retransplantation, clinical characteristics, and outcome of patients who develop this infection after retransplantation of the liver has not been defined. Patients comprised 17 liver retransplant recipients with invasive aspergillosis between 1990 and 2004.

Alessandro Cucchetti, Giorgio Ercolani, Marco Vivarelli, Matteo Cescon, Matteo Ravaioli, Giuliano La Barba, Matteo Zanello, Gian Luca Grazi, Antonio Daniele Pinna – 5 April 2006 – The objective of this study was to predict postoperative liver failure and morbidity after hepatectomy for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) with cirrhosis. The model for end‐stage liver disease (MELD) score is currently accepted as a disease severity index of cirrhotic patients awaiting liver transplantation; however, its impact on prognosis after resection of HCC on cirrhosis has never been investigated.

Urmila Khettry, Gissou Azabdaftari, Mary Ann Simpson, Elizabeth A. Pomfret, James J. Pomposelli, W. David Lewis, Roger L. Jenkins, Fredric D. Gordon – 5 April 2006 – The Model for End‐Stage Liver Disease (MELD) scoring system, a validated objective liver disease severity scale, was adopted in February 2002 to allocate cadaveric organs for liver transplantation (LT). To improve transplantability before succumbing to advanced disease, patients with low‐stage hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are given extra points in this system commensurate with their predicted mortality.

Gary Levy, Heinz Schmidli, Jeffrey Punch, Elizabeth Tuttle‐Newhall, David Mayer, Peter Neuhaus, Didier Samuel, Bjorn Nashan, Juergen Klempnauer, Alan Langnas, Yvon Calmus, Xavier Rogiers, Michael Abecassis, Richard Freeman, Maarten Sloof, John Roberts, Lutz Fischer – 5 April 2006 – Everolimus is a macrolide immunosuppressive agent with known consistent absorption. In this double‐blind study, we examined the safety and tolerability of everolimus vs. placebo in de novo liver transplant recipients.

Stefan Mauss, Massimo Puoti – 23 March 2006

Frank Dombrowski, Clarissa Flaschka, Luisa Klotz, Barbara von Netzer, Carla Schulz, Hendrik Lehnert, Matthias Evert – 23 March 2006 – Intrahepatic transplantation of ovarian fragments in ovariectomized rats results in morphological abnormalities. The liver acini draining blood from ovarian grafts show alterations resembling chemically induced amphophilic hepatocellular preneoplasias. We investigated the long‐term development of these estrogen‐induced foci of altered hepatocytes (FAH).

Beatriz Mínguez, Juan Carlos García‐Pagán, Jaume Bosch, Juan Turnes, Juli Alonso, Alex Rovira, Juan Córdoba – 23 March 2006 – Hepatic encephalopathy can arise from portal‐systemic shunting in the absence of intrinsic liver disease. However, there are few descriptions of this form of encephalopathy. Portal vein thrombosis is an infrequent disease that causes portal‐systemic shunting. Episodic hepatic encephalopathy has been described in patients with portal vein thrombosis, but it is not known if these patients develop minimal hepatic encephalopathy.

Francois H. T. Duong, Verena Christen, Magdalena Filipowicz, Markus H. Heim – 23 March 2006 – Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is an important cause of chronic liver disease. Standard therapy, pegylated interferon α (pegIFNα) combined with ribavirin, results in a sustained response rate in approximately half of patients. The cause of treatment failure in the other half of the patients is unknown, but viral interference with IFNα signal transduction through the Jak‐STAT pathway might be an important factor.