P. Aiden McCormick, Marie O'Rourke, Deirdre Carey, Marie Laffoy – 20 October 2004 – Ireland, in common with many countries, has a mixed private and public health care system. Concern has been expressed that this system may lead to inequity in access to medical treatment. To investigate this concern, all contacts and first admissions to the national liver transplant unit were identified between April 1, 2000, and March 31, 2002. The effects of private health insurance and area of residence on the likelihood of receiving a liver transplant were assessed.

James J. Stone, Seong‐Hwan Chang, Pamela M. Kimball, R. Todd Stravitz, Robert A. Fisher – 20 October 2004 – We present a case of functional and histopathologic tolerance, chimerism, and spontaneous clearance of HBV in a patient four years after living donor liver transplant (LDLT). A 19‐year‐old male patient underwent a LDLT for HBV cirrhosis. He voluntarily ceased immunosuppression and antiviral therapy after 6 months. He is now four years status post transplant without any episodes of rejection or clinical manifestation of liver disease.

Piotr Milkiewicz, Jenny Heathcote – 14 October 2004 – The mechanisms that cause the female predominance of primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) are uncertain, but the X chromosome includes genes involved in immunological tolerance. We assessed the rate of X monosomy in peripheral white blood cells from 100 women with PBC, 50 with chronic hepatitis C, and 50 healthy controls, by fluorescence in‐situ hybridisation.

Gerald Y. Minuk, Dong Feng Sun, Rebecca Greenberg, Manna Zhang, Kimberly Hawkins, Julia Uhanova, Adam Gutkin, Kevin Bernstein, Antonio Giulivi, Carla Osiowy – 14 October 2004 – Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infections continue to occur in adult hemodialysis units. A possible contributing factor is the presence of occult HBV (serum hepatitis B surface antigen [HBsAg] negative but HBV DNA positive). Two hundred forty‐one adult hemodialysis patients were screened for occult HBV.

Kazuyoshi Kon, Jae‐Sung Kim, Hartmut Jaeschke, John J. Lemasters – 14 October 2004 – Acetaminophen overdose causes massive hepatic failure via mechanisms involving glutathione depletion, oxidative stress, and mitochondrial dysfunction. The ultimate target of acetaminophen causing cell death remains uncertain, and the role of apoptosis in acetaminophen‐induced cell killing is still controversial. Our aim was to evaluate the mitochondrial permeability transition (MPT) as a key factor in acetaminophen‐induced necrotic and apoptotic killing of primary cultured mouse hepatocytes.

Marlys Hearst Witte – 14 October 2004

Gene D. LeSage, Domenico Alvaro, Shannon Glaser, Heather Francis, Luca Marucci, Tania Roskams, Jo Lynne Phinizy, Marco Marzioni, Antonio Benedetti, Silvia Taffetani, Barbara Barbaro, Giammarco Fava, Yoshiyuki Ueno, Gianfranco Alpini – 14 October 2004 – Acetylcholine potentiates secretin‐stimulated ductal secretion by Ca2+‐calcineurin–mediated modulation of adenylyl cyclase. D2 dopaminergic receptor agonists inhibit secretin‐stimulated ductal secretion via activation of protein kinase C (PKC)‐γ.

Mark A. Exley, Margaret James Koziel – 14 October 2004 – Much of the hepatology literature to date has focused on the adaptive, antigen‐specific response mediated by classical T‐cell populations in both the protection and pathogenesis of liver disease. However, the liver is selectively enriched for cells representative of innate immunity, including natural killer T (NKT) cells. In particular, certain CD1d‐reactive T cells are present at much higher frequencies in the liver than in the peripheral blood.

Sabina Janciauskiene, Sten Eriksson, Francesco Callea, Meera Mallya, Aiwu Zhou, Kuniaki Seyama, Satoru Hata, David A. Lomas – 14 October 2004 – Several point mutations of α1‐antitrypsin cause a perturbation in protein structure with consequent polymerization and intracellular accumulation. The retention of polymers of α1‐antitrypsin within hepatocytes results in protein overload that in turn is associated with juvenile hepatitis, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma.

Suchitra Sumitran‐Holgersson, Xupeng Ge, Azza Karrar, Bo Xu, Silvia Nava, Ulrika Broomé, Grzegorz Nowak, Bo‐Göran Ericzon – 14 October 2004 – Liver sinusoidal endothelial cells (LSECs) may be implicated in the induction of liver allograft rejections. We studied the clinical consequences of LSEC‐reactive antibodies and their functional capacity in modulating T‐cell responses during acute rejections. Pre‐ and posttransplant sera and T lymphocytes from 95 liver transplant patients were used in this study. LSECs were isolated from normal healthy liver.