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.

Ali R. Mani, Silvia Ippolito, Richard Ollosson, Kevin P. Moore – 23 March 2006 – Acceleration of the heart rate in response to catecholamines is impaired in cirrhosis. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that increased formation of reactive nitrogen species in biliary cirrhosis causes nitration of cardiac proteins and leads to impaired chronotropic function. Bile duct–ligated (rats with cirrhosis) or sham‐operated rats were injected daily with either saline, NG‐L‐nitro‐arginine methyl ester (L‐NAME), or N‐acetylcysteine for 7 days from week 3 to week 4 after surgery.

Ravindra A. Kale, Rakesh K. Gupta, Vivek A. Saraswat, Khader M. Hasan, Richa Trivedi, Asht M. Mishra, Piyush Ranjan, Chandra M. Pandey, Ponnada A. Narayana – 23 March 2006 – Brain water may increase in hepatic encephalopathy (HE). Diffusion tensor imaging was performed in patients with cirrhosis with or without HE to quantify the changes in brain water diffusivity and to correlate it with neuropsychological (NP) tests. Thirty‐nine patients with cirrhosis, with minimal (MHE) or overt HE, were studied and compared to 18 controls.

Abdullah M.S. Al‐Osaimi, Stephen H. Caldwell – 23 March 2006

Ruth Y. Lan, Chunmei Cheng, Zhe‐Xiong Lian, Koichi Tsuneyama, Guo‐Xiang Yang, Yuki Moritoki, Ya‐Hui Chuang, Takafumi Nakamura, Shigeru Saito, Shinji Shimoda, Atsushi Tanaka, Christopher L. Bowlus, Yasuo Takano, Aftab A. Ansari, Ross L. Coppel, M. Eric Gershwin – 23 March 2006 – CD4+CD25high regulatory T cells (Tregs) play a critical role in self‐tolerance, as seen in murine autoimmunity. Studies on Tregs in human autoimmunity have focused primarily on peripheral blood samples. A study targeting diseased tissue should identify direct relationships between Tregs and autoimmunity.

Vishnudutt Purohit, David A. Brenner – 23 March 2006 – This report is a summary of Ron Thurman Symposium on the Mechanisms of Alcohol‐Induced Hepatic Fibrosis which was organized by The National Institutes of Health in Santa Barbara, California, June 25, 2005. The Symposium and this report highlight the unique aspects by which drinking alcoholic beverages may result in hepatic fibrosis. Acetaldehyde, the first metabolite of ethanol, can upregulate transcription of collagen I directly as well as indirectly by upregulating the synthesis of transforming growth factor‐beta 1 (TGF‐β1).

William J. Holubek, Susanne Kalman, Robert S. Hoffman – 23 March 2006

Ulrich Beuers, Thomas Pusl – 23 March 2006

Andrew P. Holt, Zania Stamataki, David H. Adams – 23 March 2006