Nicholas Murphy, Georg Auzinger, William Bernel, Julia Wendon – 30 January 2004 – Acute liver failure (ALF) is a rare condition characterized by the development of encephalopathy in the absence of chronic liver disease. Cerebral edema occurs in up to 80% of patients with Grade IV encephalopathy. In the current prospective randomized controlled clinical trial, we examined the effect of induced hypernatremia on the incidence of intracranial hypertension (IH) in patients with ALF. Thirty patients with ALF and Grade III or IV encephalopathy were randomized.

Ulrich A. Walker, Jochen Bäuerle, Montse Laguno, Javier Murillas, Stefan Mauss, Günther Schmutz, Bernhard Setzer, Rosa Miquel, José M. Gatell, Josep Mallolas – 30 January 2004 – The “D drug” HIV reverse‐transcriptase inhibitors zalcitabine, didanosine, and stavudine are relatively strong inhibitors of polymerase‐gamma compared with the “non–D drugs” zidovudine, lamivudine, and abacavir. D drugs deplete mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in cultured hepatocytes. This mtDNA depletion is associated with an increased in vitro production of lactate.

Arndt Vogel, Inge E.T. van den Berg, Muhsen Al‐Dhalimy, John Groopman, Ching‐Nan Ou, Olga Ryabinina, Mihail S. Iordanov, Milton Finegold, Markus Grompe – 30 January 2004 – The murine model of hereditary tyrosinemia type 1 (HT1) was used to analyze the relationship between chronic liver disease and programmed cell death in vivo. In healthy fumarylacetoacetate hydrolase deficient mice (Fah‐/‐), protected from liver injury by the drug 2‐(2‐ nitro‐4‐trifluoromethylbenzoyl)‐1,3‐cyclohexanedione (NTBC), the tyrosine metabolite homogentisic acid (HGA) caused rapid hepatocyte death.

Maria H Sjogren – 30 January 2004

Jean M. Regimbeau, Magali Colombat, Philippe Mognol, François Durand, Eddie Abdalla, Claude Degott, Françoise Degos, Olivier Farges, Jacques Belghiti – 30 January 2004 – Ten percent of patients who undergo resection for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) associated with chronic liver disease have no detectable cause for this underlying liver disease. Recent studies have shown that patients with cryptogenic chronic liver disease frequently have risk factors for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

Byung Ihn Choi – 30 January 2004 – Early detection of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is important, since the most effective treatment for HCC is surgical resection or local ablation therapy when the tumor is small. Fortunately, recent advances in liver imaging techniques have facilitated the detection of small HCCs.

Lorenzo Capussotti, Andrea Muratore, Paolo Massucco, Alessandro Ferrero, Roberto Polastri, Hedayat Bouzari – 30 January 2004 – Since the lack of donors, liver resections continue to be the treatment of choice for cirrhotic patients with good liver function and resectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Moreover, over the past 2 decades, an increasing number of major hepatic resections have been performed.

Guido Torzilli, Natale Olivari, Eliana Moroni, Daniele Del Fabbro, Andrea Gambetti, Piera Leoni, Marco Montorsi, Masatoshi Makuuchi – 30 January 2004 – Intraoperative ultrasonography (IOUS) is the most accurate diagnostic technique for staging hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), but has low accuracy in differentiating the new nodules detected in the cirrhotic liver. The aim of this preliminary report is to evaluate whether contrast‐enhanced intraoperative ultrasonography (CE‐IOUS) could provide additional information to IOUS in patients with HCC.

Chloe C. McAlister, Zu‐hua Gao, Vivian C. McAlister, Rekha Gupta, James R. Wright, Allan S. MacDonald, Kevork Peltekian – 30 January 2004 – The mechanism by which a liver transplantation might protect a simultaneous kidney transplant in a crossmatch‐positive recipient is unknown. Flow cytometry crossmatch (FCXM) has increased the sensitivity of donor‐specific antibody (DSA) detection compared with complement‐dependant cytotoxicity (CDC).

Pietro Vajro, Claudia Mandato, Adriana Franzese, Stefania Lucariello – 30 January 2004