Adrian Fisher, Joseph M. Seguel, Andrew N. de la Torre, Dorian Wilson, Anand Merchant, Rakesh K. Arora, Baburao Koneru – 30 January 2004 – Sirolimus is a new immunosuppressive agent that lacks the nephrotoxicity and neurotoxicity associated with calcineurin inhibitors.1–3 The addition of sirolimus to immunosuppressive protocols may thus allow sparing of calcineurin inhibitors and reduction or elimination of associated toxicities.1, 6 Between January 2000 and July 2001, sirolimus was administered to 55 of 116 consecutive liver recipients.

Gary A. Levy, Edward H. Cole – 30 January 2004

Hwan Young Yoo, Paul J. Thuluvath – 30 January 2004 – Poor socioeconomic status (SES) may be associated with lower survival after liver transplantation. In a previous study, we showed that African‐American race was an independent predictor of poor survival, and one of the major criticisms of our study was that we had not adjusted the survival for SES as a confounding variable.

F. Xavier López‐Labrador, Marina Berenguer, Amparo Sempere, Martín Prieto, Rafael Sirera, Andrés González‐Molina, Vicente Ortiz, Ma Luisa Marty, Joaquín Berenguer, Miguel Gobernado – 30 January 2004 – The association between the severity of chronic hepatitis C and the variability of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) genome remains controversial, but to our knowledge few data are available to date regarding T‐cell epitope coding regions in transplant patients.

Anne‐Geneviève Marcelin, Anne‐Marie Roque‐Afonso, Monika Hurtova, Nicolas Dupin, Micheline Tulliez, Mylène Sebagh, Zaïna Ait Arkoub, Catherine Guettier, Didier Samuel, Vincent Calvez, Elisabeth Dussaix – 30 January 2004 – Human herpesvirus 8 (HHV‐8) is associated with the development of Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) and rare lymphoproliferative disorders in immunosuppressed patients. The risk of HHV‐8 transmission by liver transplantation and the clinical manifestations of primary infection in this setting have yet to be determined.

Yu Fan Cheng, Chao Long Chen, Tung Liang Huang, Tai Yi Chen, Yaw Sen Chen, Chih Chi Wang, Leo Leung‐chit Tsang, King Wah Chiu, Bruno Jawan, Hock Liew Eng – 30 January 2004 – Catheter angiography for early diagnosis of vascular complications in pediatric liver transplant yields excellent results but remains an extremely invasive examination for younger children, precluding its routine use. We assessed the efficacy of three‐dimensional multislice computed tomographic angiography (3DCTA) as an alternative option in these patients.

Masamichi Kojiro – 30 January 2004 – Although increasing numbers of equivocal nodular lesions have been detected in patients with liver cirrhosis with the development of various diagnostic imaging modalities, the pathological diagnosis of small, well‐differentiated hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in the early stage and of high‐grade dysplastic nodules (DNs) is a controversial issue among both Japanese and Western pathologists.

Guido Torzilli, Jacques Belghiti, Masatoshi Makuuchi – 30 January 2004

Calogero Cammà, Danilo Di Bona, Filippo Schepis, E. Jenny Heathcote, Stefan Zeuzem, Paul J. Pockros, Patrick Marcellin, Luis Balart, Alfredo Alberti, Antonio Craxì – 30 January 2004 – Multicenter randomized trials have shown that once‐weekly pegylated interferon (peginterferon) alfa‐2a is more efficacious than conventional interferon alfa‐2a (IFN) in patients with chronic hepatitis C.

Jörn M. Schattenberg, Yongjun Wang, Raina M. Rigoli, Dennis R. Koop, Mark J. Czaja – 30 January 2004 – Chronic oxidative stress induced by overexpression of the cytochrome P450 isoform 2E1 (CYP2E1) has been implicated in hepatocyte injury and death. However, the mechanism by which CYP2E1 overexpression may promote cell death is unknown. Acute oxidative stress activates mitogen‐activated protein kinases (MAPK), suggesting that chronic oxidant generation by CYP2E1 may regulate cellular responses through these signaling pathways.