Victor I. Machicao, Murli Krishna, Hugo Bonatti, Bashar A. Aqel, Justin H. Nguyen, Stephen D. Weigand, Barry G. Rosser, Christopher Hughes, Rolland C. Dickson – 20 April 2004 – The natural history of allograft steatosis in hepatitis C (HCV)‐infected patients after liver transplantation (LT) is poorly understood. The aim of our study was to determine the relationship of allograft steatosis to HCV recurrence after LT. All patients undergoing LT at our center from March 1998 to December 2001 were included in the study.

David H. Van Thiel, Sherri Yong, S. David Li, Marc Kennedy, John Brems – 20 April 2004 – Chronic end stage liver disease is the most frequent indication for liver transplantation. Individuals with end stage cirrhosis, and therefore individuals on liver transplant lists, are at increased risk of developing a hepatic cancer.

Michael D. Voigt, Bridget Zimmerman, Daniel A. Katz, Stephen C. Rayhill – 20 April 2004 – Experienced transplant professionals may predict mortality better, in highly selected cirrhotic patients referred for accelerated listing to regional review boards, than the (Pediatric) Model for End‐Stage Liver Disease score. However, these requests are often denied. We wished to establish if (1) such denials increase mortality and (2) referring physicians predict mortality better than the score.

Valeria R. Mas, Daniel G. Maluf, Richard Stravitz, Catherine I. Dumur, Bradly Clark, Cheryl Rodgers, Andrea Ferreira‐Gonzalez, Robert A. Fisher – 20 April 2004 – Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fifth most common cancer and the third leading cause of cancer death in the world. The present study aimed to investigate the genes involved in viral carcinogenesis and tumor progression in liver transplant recipients with hepatitis C virus (HCV) and HCC.

Guy W. Neff, Christopher B. O'Brien, Robert Cirocco, Marzia Montalbano, Maria de Medina, Phillip Ruiz, Amr S. Khaled, Pablo A. Bejarano, Kamran Safdar, Mary A. Hill, Andreas G. Tzakis, Eugene R. Schiff – 20 April 2004 – The optimal duration of therapy for pegylated interferon combined with ribavirin in recurrent Hepatitis C virus (HCV) following liver transplantation is not known.

Federico Villamil, Stephen Pollard – 20 April 2004 – Adjusting cyclosporine (CsA) dose based on blood concentration at 2 hours after dose (C2) has been shown in prospective clinical trials to reduce the risk of rejection compared with conventional trough monitoring. In addition, it provides equivalent efficacy to tacrolimus in liver transplant patients, with a favorable safety profile. Target C2 should be defined on an individual basis depending on adjunctive therapy and the level of exposure required.

Arun J Sanyal – 25 March 2004

Manuel Romero‐Gómez, Lourdes Grande, Inés Camacho – 25 March 2004 – Oral glutamine challenge (OGC) has been found to be safe, and an altered response predicts elevated risk of overt hepatic encephalopathy (HE) in patients with minimal hepatic encephalopathy (MHE). We assessed the survival prognosis of patients with cirrhosis, but without current overt HE, who have an altered OGC and MHE. MHE was inferred using 3 neuropsychological tests. Venous ammonia concentrations were measured pre‐ and post‐60 minutes of a 10 g oral glutamine load.

25 March 2004

Ian P.J. Alwayn, Patrick J. Javid, Kathleen M. Gura, Vânia Nosé, Mario Ollero, Mark Puder – 25 March 2004