Vassilios Smyrniotis, Nikolaos Arkadopoulos, Georgia Kostopanagiotou, John Vassiliou, John Contis – 22 December 2004 – Abnormalities of recipient or donor vascular structures are associated with reconstructive difficulties in liver transplantation. A patient with thrombosis of the right hepatic vein and associated stricture of the inferior vena cava (IVC), portal vein thrombosis and multiple aberrant arteries underwent orthotopic liver transplantation. The donor's suprahepatic IVC was anastomosed to the recipient's intrathoracic IVC.

Shintaro Yagi, Taku Iida, Kentaro Taniguchi, Tomohide Hori, Takashi Hamada, Koji Fujii, Shugo Mizuno, Shinji Uemoto – 22 December 2004 – Several reports claim that portal hypertension after living‐donor liver transplantation (LDLT) adversely affects graft function, but few have assessed the impact of portal venous pressure (PVP) on graft regeneration. We divided 32 adult LDLT recipients based on mean PVP during the 1st 3 days after LDLT into a group with a PVP ≥ 20 mm of Hg (H Group; n = 17), and a group with a PVP < 20 mm of Hg (L Group; n = 15).

J. Ignacio Herrero, María Lorenzo, Jorge Quiroga, Bruno Sangro, Fernando Pardo, Fernando Rotellar, Javier Alvarez‐Cienfuegos, Jesús Prieto – 22 December 2004 – Immunosuppression increases the risk of posttransplant malignancy and it may increase posttransplant mortality. The finding of factors related to the development of posttransplant malignancy may serve as a guide to avoid those risk factors and to develop strategies of posttransplant surveillance. The incidence and risk factors of malignancy were studied in 187 consecutive liver transplant recipients surviving more than 3 months.

22 December 2004

Maureen M. Jonas, Laura E. Krawczuk, Heung Bae Kim, Craig Lillehei, Antonio Perez‐Atayde – 22 December 2004 – Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has been reported in adults with hypothalamic or pituitary dysfunction, and some have progressed to end stage liver disease requiring transplantation. We report a teenager who intially presented with hypoxia due to intrapulmonary shunting, found to have NAFLD and cirrhosis associated with a hypothalamic tumor and panhypopituitarism. The NAFLD recurred very quickly after a successful liver transplant.

Alexander E. Handschin, Markus Weber, Eberhard Renner, Pierre‐Alain Clavien – 22 December 2004 – The abdominal compartment syndrome is a well‐known complication after abdominal trauma and is increasingly recognized as a potential risk factor for renal failure and mortality after adult orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT). We present a case report of a young patient who presented with acute liver failure complicated by an acute pancreatitis. The patient developed an acute abdominal compartment syndrome after OLT.

John O'Grady – 1 December 2004

Paul J. Pockros, Mitchell L. Shiffman, Eugene R. Schiff, Mark S. Sulkowski, Zobair Younossi, Douglas T. Dieterich, Teresa L. Wright, Samir H. Mody, K. Linda Tang, Betty L. Goon, Peter J. Bowers, Gerhard Leitz, Nezam H. Afdhal, PROACTIVE Study Group – 24 November 2004 – Anemia and decreased health‐related quality of life (HRQL) are common in patients receiving combination therapy of interferon alfa (IFN) and ribavirin (RBV) for chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection.

Mónica Guevara, Gloria Fernández‐Esparrach, Pere Ginès – 24 November 2004

Emilio Siendones, Dalia Fouad, María José M. Díaz‐Guerra, Manuel de la Mata, Lisardo Boscá, Jordi Muntané – 24 November 2004 – Prostaglandin E1 (PGE1) reduces cell death in experimental and clinical liver dysfunction. We have previously shown that PGE1 preadministration protects against NO‐dependent cell death induced by D‐galactosamine (D‐GalN) through a rapid increase of nuclear factor κB (NF‐κB) activity, inducible NO synthase (NOS‐2) expression, and NO production.