Lucy Golden‐Mason, Hugo R. Rosen – 23 February 2006 – Liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma secondary to chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection requiring transplantation represents a significant public health problem. The most remarkable feature of hepatitis C virus is the ability to establish chronic infection in the vast majority of cases. Efforts to define clinical correlates of HCV persistence have focused primarily on CD4 and CD8 T cell responses. Until recently, the role of innate immunity in determining the outcome of HCV infection had received relatively little attention.

Hironori Haga, Hiroto Egawa, Yasuhiro Fujimoto, Mikiko Ueda, Aya Miyagawa‐Hayashino, Takaki Sakurai, Tomoko Okuno, Itsuko Koyanagi, Yasutsugu Takada, Toshiaki Manabe – 23 February 2006 – Complement C4d deposition in graft capillaries has been reported to be associated with antibody‐mediated rejection in kidney and other solid organ transplantation. The correlation of C4d deposits and humoral rejection in liver transplants, however, is not well understood.

Ulf P. Neuman, Peter Neuhaus – 23 February 2006

Neal R. Barshes, Timothy C. Lee, Ian W. Udell, Christine A. O'Mahoney, Saul J. Karpen, Beth A. Carter, John A. Goss – 23 February 2006 – The pediatric end‐stage liver disease (PELD) model accurately estimates 90‐day waitlist mortality for pediatric liver transplant candidates, but it has been unclear if PELD can identify patients who will derive survival benefit from undergoing liver transplantation (LT), if it correlates with posttransplant survival, or if it can identify patients for whom LT would be futile.

Christopher P. Appleton, R. Todd Hurst, Kwan S. Lee, Christina Reuss, Joseph G. Hentz – 23 February 2006

Shahid Habib, Brian Berk, Chung‐Chou H. Chang, Anthony J. Demetris, Paulo Fontes, Igor Dvorchik, Bijan Eghtesad, Amadeo Marcos, A. Obaid Shakil – 23 February 2006 – The model for end‐stage liver disease (MELD) was developed to predict short‐term mortality in patients with cirrhosis. It has since become the standard tool to prioritize patients for liver transplantation. We assessed the value of pretransplant MELD in the prediction of posttransplant survival. We identified adult patients who underwent liver transplantation at our institution during 1991–2002.

Matthew Hoare, William TH Gelson, Nagui Antoun, Graeme JM Alexander – 23 February 2006

James D. Perkins – 23 February 2006 – The metabolic syndrome is a cluster of interrelated common clinical disorders, including obesity, insulin resistance, glucose intolerance, hypertension, and dyslipidemia (hypertriglyceridemia and low HDL cholesterol levels). According to recently defined criteria, the metabolic syndrome is prevalent and is associated with a greater risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease than any of its individual components.

Olaf Guckelberger, Florian Mutzke, Matthias Glanemann, Ulf P. Neumann, Sven Jonas, Ruth Neuhaus, Peter Neuhaus, Jan M. Langrehr – 23 February 2006 – Increased prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors has been acknowledged in liver transplant recipients, and an increased incidence of cardiovascular events has been suspected. Individual risk determination, however, has not yet been established.

Hideaki Uchiyama, Yuji Soejima, Akinobu Taketomi, Tomoharu Yoshizumi, Noboru Harada, Hideki Ijichi, Yusuke Yonemura, Yoshihiko Maehara – 23 February 2006 – Portopulmonary hypertension (PPHTN) is one of the most devastating consequences of end‐stage liver cirrhosis. When a patient has moderate to severe PPHTN, his or her candidature for liver transplantation is denied. Here we report a successful adult‐to‐adult living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) in a patient with moderate to severe PPHTN.