Yuichi Tanaka, Hironori Haga, Hiroto Egawa, Tomoko Okuno, Aya Miyagawa‐Hayashino, Tatsuaki Tsuruyama, Michiyo Kambe, Hiroyuki Marusawa, Tsutomu Chiba, Toshiaki Manabe – 21 April 2005 – Several reports have shown detection of recipient‐type ABO histo‐blood group antigens (r‐ABOAg) in the liver allograft, which may represent either true intragraft chimerism or other events such as cell injury. Little is known about factors that affect the timing and extent of r‐ABOAg expression in the graft.

Myron Schwartz, Manoussos Konstadoulakis, Sasan Roayaie – 21 April 2005

Marcelo Enne, Lucio Pacheco‐Moreira, Elizabeth Balbi, Alexandre Cerqueira, Giuseppe Santalucia, José Manoel Martinho – 21 April 2005 – The shortage of organ donors for low‐weight liver transplant recipients, especially small children, has led to the development of new surgical techniques to increase the donor pool. Almost all of these techniques use the left lateral segment (Couinaud's segments II and III), but even this graft could be too large for children under 10 kg, and further reduction could be necessary. Few articles address the issue of monosegmental liver transplantation.

Haithem Chtioui, Arthur Zimmermann, Jean‐François Dufour – 21 April 2005

James Neuberger, Douglas Thorburn – 21 April 2005 – Background and aims: A consensus has been reached that liver donor allocation should be based primarily on liver disease severity and that waiting time should not be a major determining factor. Our aim was to assess the capability of the Model for End‐Stage Liver Disease (MELD) score to correctly rank potential liver recipients according to their severity of liver disease and mortality risk on the OPTN liver waiting list.

Kenneth S. Stewart, Chun H. Rhim, Michelle L. Bahrain, Zahra D. Ashkezari, Metin Ozdemirli, Thomas M. Fishbein, Lynt B. Johnson, Amy D. Lu, Jeffrey S. Plotkin – 21 April 2005 – In 2002 there were more than 5,000 liver transplantations performed in the United States. As of February 2004 there were more than 17,000 registrations for liver transplantation. As more organs are transplanted and surgical techniques improve, unique causes of morbidity and mortality will become apparent.

Takayoshi Fukutomi, Yonghong Zhou, Shigenobu Kawai, Hidetoshi Eguchi, Jack R. Wands, Jisu Li – 19 April 2005 – Hepatitis C virus (HCV) core protein has been implicated in the development of human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Here we report that expression of HCV core protein by transient transfection increased cell proliferation, DNA synthesis, and cell cycle progression in Huh‐7 cells, a human HCC‐derived cell line. Culture supernatant from transfected cells also harbored a growth‐promoting effect.

Karen L. Swanson, Russell H. Wiesner, Michael J. Krowka – 19 April 2005 – Few data exist concerning survival after the diagnosis of hepatopulmonary syndrome (HPS). Although orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) frequently results in complete resolution of HPS, the relationship between transplantation and survival has not been described. The study rationale was to describe long‐term survival in patients with HPS. Data were derived from patients diagnosed with HPS at Mayo Clinic (n = 61) between 1985 and 2002, including those undergoing OLT (n = 24) and those who did not (n = 37).

Nasser Semmo, Cheryl L. Day, Scott M. Ward, Michaela Lucas, Gillian Harcourt, Andrew Loughry, Paul Klenerman – 19 April 2005 – Hepatitis C virus (HCV) becomes persistent in the majority of infected individuals. In doing so, the virus evades host adaptive immune responses, although the mechanisms responsible in this evasion are not clear. Several groups have demonstrated weak or absent HCV‐specific CD4+ T cell responses during chronic HCV infection using proliferation assays and, more recently, class II tetramers.

Julie Polson, William M. Lee – 19 April 2005