Cynthia W. Ko, Shirley A. A. Beresford, Scott J. Schulte, Alvin M. Matsumoto, Sum P. Lee – 19 January 2005 – Gallstones are strongly associated with higher parity in women. This study prospectively assessed the incidence, natural history, and risk factors for biliary sludge and stones during pregnancy and the postpartum in 3,254 women at an army medical center. Women with a prior cholecystectomy or with stones at their first study ultrasound were excluded. Gallbladder ultrasound and subject questionnaires were obtained in each trimester and at 4 to 6 weeks postpartum.

Winston Dunn, Laith H. Jamil, Larry S. Brown, Russell H. Wiesner, W. Ray Kim, K. V. Narayanan Menon, Michael Malinchoc, Patrick S. Kamath, Vijay Shah – 19 January 2005 – Assessing severity of disease in patients with alcoholic hepatitis (AH) is useful for predicting mortality, guiding treatment decisions, and stratifying patients for therapeutic trials. The traditional disease‐specific prognostic model used for this purpose is the Maddrey discriminant function (DF).

Tsutomu Masaki, Asahiro Morishita, Shigeki Kuriyama – 19 January 2005

Andrea Eberle, Roland Reinehr, Stephan Becker, Dieter Häussinger – 19 January 2005 – Hyperosmolarity‐ and CD95 ligand (CD95L)‐induced interactions between CD95 (Fas/APO‐1) and the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) involve EGFR‐catalyzed CD95 tyrosine phosphorylation. Such interactions were studied by means of fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) and CD95 receptor mutagenesis in Huh7 hepatoma cells.

Marie‐Christine Rousselet, Sophie Michalak, Florence Dupré, Anne Croué, Pierre Bedossa, Jean‐Paul Saint‐André, Paul Calès – 19 January 2005 – Inter‐observer agreement on activity and fibrosis scores used in chronic viral hepatitis has only been studied under selected conditions. The aim of this study was to identify the sources of variability due to specimen characteristics and observers. This study included 254 liver specimens and 15 pathologists and used the Metavir score.

Alec Avgerinos, Jiannis Vlachogiannakos, Spilios Manolakopoulos, Sotirios A. Raptis – 19 January 2005

Glen Lutchman, Marc Ghany – 19 January 2005

Jason M. Hui, Jacob George – 19 January 2005

Dimitri Lavillette, Alexander W. Tarr, Cécile Voisset, Peggy Donot, Birke Bartosch, Christine Bain, Arvind H. Patel, Jean Dubuisson, Jonathan K. Ball, François‐Loïc Cosset – 19 January 2005 – Because of the lack of a robust cell culture system, relatively little is known about the molecular details of the cell entry mechanism for hepatitis C virus (HCV). Recently, we described infectious HCV pseudo‐particles (HCVpp) that were generated by incorporating unmodified HCV E1E2 glycoproteins into the membrane of retroviral core particles.

Slaven Erceg, Pilar Monfort, Mariluz Hernández‐Viadel, Regina Rodrigo, Carmina Montoliu, Vicente Felipo – 19 January 2005 – Patients with liver disease with overt or minimal hepatic encephalopathy show impaired intellectual capacity. The underlying molecular mechanism remains unknown. Rats with portacaval anastomosis or with hyperammonemia without liver failure also show impaired learning ability and impaired function of the glutamate‐nitric oxide‐cyclic guanine monophosphate (glutamate‐NO‐cGMP) pathway in brain.