Shin Hwang, Sung‐Gyu Lee, Chul‐Soo Ahn, Kwang‐Min Park, Ki‐Hun Kim, Gi‐Won Song, Dong‐Sik Kim – 25 August 2005

Gerry C. MacQuillan, Moataz S. Seyam, Peter Nightingale, James M. Neuberger, Nicholas Murphy – 25 August 2005 – Early identification of those patients with fulminant hepatic liver failure (FHF) who need a transplant greatly helps in their management. A number of prognostic criteria have recently been proposed, including arterial blood lactate and serum phosphate concentrations. To validate their use, we retrospectively studied 83 consecutive patients with FHF admitted to our intensive treatment unit between August 2000 and March 2003.

Mical S. Campbell, David S. Kotlyar, Colleen M. Brensinger, James D. Lewis, Kirti Shetty, Roy D. Bloom, James F. Markmann, Kim M. Olthoff, Abraham Shaked, K. Rajender Reddy – 25 August 2005 – In patients with recent onset renal insufficiency, the decision to perform combined kidney/liver transplantation (CKLT) vs. orthotopic liver transplantation alone (OLTa) can be difficult. We hypothesized that duration of renal dysfunction may correlate with creatinine elevation after liver transplantation.

J. Ignacio Herrero, Agustín España, Jorge Quiroga, Bruno Sangro, Fernando Pardo, Javier Alvárez‐Cienfuegos, Jesús Prieto – 25 August 2005 – Nonmelanoma skin cancer (NMSC) is a frequent complication after liver transplantation, but the risk factors of posttransplant NMSC have not been well defined. In a prospectively followed series of 170 liver transplant recipients, we assessed the incidence of NMSC, compared it with the expected incidence in the general population, and investigated which risk factors were related to NMSC.

Paolo De Simone, Paola Carrai, Lidiana Baldoni, Stefania Petruccelli, Laura Coletti, Luca Morelli, Franco Filipponi – 25 August 2005 – We report the results of a retrospective review of the outpatient pretransplantation workup for United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) 3 patients adopted at a liver transplantation (LT) center and illustrate the efficiency indicators used for quality evaluation and cost‐analysis. A single‐center, pre‐LT evaluation workup was performed on an outpatient basis at a cost per patient evaluation of 2,770 Euros (€).

Thomas A. Gonwa – 25 August 2005

Cosimo Colletta, Carlo Smirne, Carlo Fabris, Pierluigi Toniutto, Rachele Rapetti, Rosalba Minisini, Mario Pirisi – 24 August 2005 – The course of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection carriers with normal/near‐normal aminotransferases (NALT) is usually mild; however, in a few, fibrosis progression occurs. We aimed to verify whether monitoring by liver biopsy might be replaced by noninvasive methods and to identify factors associated with fibrosis progression in patients with persistently normal alanine aminotransferases.

Elwyn Elias – 22 August 2005

Yves Horsmans, Thomas Berg, Jean‐Pierre Desager, Tobias Mueller, Eckart Schott, Simon P. Fletcher, Kevin R. Steffy, Lisa A. Bauman, Bradley M. Kerr, Devron R. Averett – 22 August 2005 – Immune‐based therapy is the mainstay treatment for chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection but causes multiple side effects and achieves durable viral clearance in only approximately 50% of patients. Most new investigational anti‐HCV compounds are direct‐acting antivirals for which durability of response and risk of viral mutations and resistance are not yet known.

Tracy Chen, Linda L. Pearce, Jim Peterson, Detcho Stoyanovsky, Timothy R. Billiar – 22 August 2005 – Nitric oxide (NO) can be either cytoprotective or cytotoxic in hepatocytes, depending on conditions within the cell. We hypothesized that redox status is a determinant of NO effects on cell viability.