H C Bodenheimer, K L Lindsay, G L Davis, J H Lewis, S N Thung, L B Seeff – 30 December 2003 – Hepatitis C is a common cause of chronic liver disease that may progress to cirrhosis. We conducted a multicenter double‐blind placebo‐controlled trial of ribavirin 600 mg given orally twice daily for 36 weeks with follow‐up off therapy for an additional 16 weeks. Fifty‐nine patients with compensated chronic hepatitis C were entered.

H Feucht, B Zollner, S Polywka, B Knodler, M Schroter, H Nolte, R Laufs – 30 December 2003 – A new virus named hepatitis G virus (HGV) has been detected recently. Until now, no assays for the detection of antibodies against different HGV proteins have been commercially available. Therefore, a strip immunoblot assay has been established to investigate seroreactivity against recombinant structural (core) and nonstructural proteins (NS3 and NS4) of HGV produced in Escherichia coli.

T Kojima, M Yamamoto, C Mochizuki, T Mitaka, N Sawada, Y Mochizuki – 30 December 2003 – In the present study, we determined in detail the changes of liver gap junctions, connexin 26 (Cx26), and connexin 32 (Cx32), during DNA synthesis and redifferentiation of hepatocytes in vitro. We used primary rat hepatocytes that expressed the liver gap junction proteins, which were cultured in the medium containing epidermal growth factor (EGF) with 2% dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) and 10‐7 mol/L glucagon (a DMSO culture system), as we previously reported.

S Tanaka, L Mohr, E V Schmidt, K Sugimachi, J R Wands – 30 December 2003 – The human insulin receptor substrate‐1 (hIRS‐1) is a key intracellular protein involved in various cytokine signaling pathways associated with cell growth. We have previously demonstrated that stable transfection and overexpression of hIRS‐1 in human hepatoblastoma cells in vitro leads to the constitutive activation of the mitogen‐activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascade. In this setting, hIRS‐1 acts as a dominant oncogene and will induce neoplastic transformation of NIH 3T3 cells.

E Olaso, A Santisteban, J Bidaurrazaga, A M Gressner, J Rosenbaum, F Vidal‐Vanaclocha – 30 December 2003 – In this work we report the presence of intrametastatic smooth‐muscle iso‐α‐actin (SMA)‐expressing cells which appeared from the early stages of the hepatic metastasis process of intrasplenically injected B16 melanoma (B16M) cells. They formed a network of stromal cells among B16M cells, a very low percentage of them expressing desmin.

M J Arthur – 30 December 2003

L B Seeff – 30 December 2003

J R Jonsson, P G Hogan, G A Balderson, L L Ooi, S V Lynch, R W Strong, E E Powell – 30 December 2003 – In vitro studies designed to examine the mechanisms of immune tolerance after liver transplantation in humans have been hampered by the difficulty in obtaining sufficient numbers of donor liver‐associated leukocytes (LALs). We have investigated whether the ex vivo perfusion of donor livers releases a population of LALs that can be readily retrieved from the waste fluid.

M Pozzi, S Carugo, G Boari, V Pecci, S de Ceglia, S Maggiolini, G B Bolla, L Roffi, M Failla, G Grassi, C Giannattasio, G Mancia – 30 December 2003 – Cirrhosis is associated with cardiovascular abnormalities. Scanty information is available as to whether these include left ventricle diastolic dysfunction and wall thickness increase.

C S An, L M Petrovic, I Reyter, T Tolmachoff, L D Ferrell, S N Thung, S A Geller, A M Marchevsky – 30 December 2003 – Liver cell dysplasia (LCD) is considered a preneoplastic lesion, whose characterization and differentiation from hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and from the reactive changes seen in cirrhosis has been controversial. We studied 12 cases of LCD (large cell type) with image analysis techniques (IA) and compared the findings with those of HCC (n = 40), and a spectrum of non‐neoplastic hepatic lesions including normal liver and cirrhosis (n = 49).