Fitness testing of pediatric liver transplant recipients

Viswanath B. Unnithan, Suzanne H.E. Veehof, Philip Rosenthal, Christine Mudge, Teresa H. O'Brien, Patricia Painter – 30 December 2003 – Liver transplantation is accepted as the standard management for end‐stage liver disease in children. Pediatric heart and heart‐lung transplant recipients have shown significantly diminished exercise capacities compared with age‐matched, able‐bodied, control subjects.

Acute changes in cerebral blood flow and metabolism during portasystemic shunting

Rajiv Jalan, David E. Newby, Steven W.M. Olde Damink, Doris N. Redhead, Peter C. Hayes, Alistair Lee – 30 December 2003 – This report describes the instantaneous changes in cerebral blood flow (CBF), determined by intravascular ultrasound and Doppler, in a patient with cirrhosis undergoing placement of a transjugular intrahepatic stent‐shunt for uncontrolled variceal bleeding. Acute changes in CBF were observed during and after portasystemic shunting, which culminated in cerebral edema and cerebral herniation.

Domino split‐liver transplantation from a living donor: Case reports of in situ and ex situ splitting

Yukihiro Inomata, Taro Nakamura, Shinji Uemoto, Koichi Tanaka, Go Wakabayashi, Motohide Shimazu – 30 December 2003 – The liver from a patient with familial amyloid polyneuropathy (FAP) scheduled for living donor liver transplantation can be split and transplanted into 2 adult patients with end‐stage liver disease. We have performed this procedure, called domino split transplantation, twice. The native liver was split in situ in 1 patient with FAP and ex situ in the other patient with FAP.

A comparative study of antibody expressions in primary biliary cirrhosis and autoimmune cholangitis using phage display

Nobuhiro Ikuno, Marita Scealy, Janet M. Davies, Senga F. Whittingham, Katsuhisa Omagari, Ian R. Mackay, Merrill J. Rowley – 30 December 2003 – Primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) and autoimmune cholangitis (AIC) are serologic expressions of an autoimmune liver disease affecting biliary ductular cells.

Smoking and hypoxemia caused by hepatopulmonary syndrome before and after liver transplantation

Giovanni Rolla, Luisa Brussino, Luca Dutto, Antonio Ottobrelli, Caterina Bucca – 30 December 2003 – Severe hypoxemia may occur in patients with liver disease as a result of abnormal intrapulmonary vasodilatations (hepatopulmonary syndrome, HPS). Liver transplantation (LT) is the only effective treatment of HPS, with a quite variable delay of improvement of oxygenation. Smoking, by decreasing respiratory nitric oxide (NO), apparently contributed to improved oxygenation in a 44‐year‐old man with alcohol‐induced cirrhosis, complicated by HPS, who underwent LT.

A randomized, double‐blind trial comparing pegylated interferon alfa‐2b to interferon alfa‐2b as initial treatment for chronic hepatitis C

Karen L. Lindsay, Christian Trepo, Tobias Heintges, Mitchell L. Shiffman, Stuart C. Gordon, John C. Hoefs, Eugene R. Schiff, Zachary D. Goodman, Mark Laughlin, Ruji Yao, Janice K. Albrecht – 30 December 2003 – This international, randomized, active‐controlled, parallel‐group, double‐blind dose‐finding study compared peginterferon alfa‐2b (PegIntron™) to interferon alfa‐2b for the initial treatment of compensated chronic hepatitis C.

Expression of hepatitis C virus NS5A natural mutants in a hepatocytic cell line inhibits the antiviral effect of interferon in a PKR‐independent manner

Philippe Podevin, Abdelmajid Sabile, Rodrigo Gajardo, Nadira Delhem, Annie Abadie, Pierre‐Yves Lozach, Laura Beretta, Christian Bréchot – 30 December 2003 – The impact of hepatitis C virus NS5A protein mutations on interferon alfa (IFN‐α) signaling pathway, cell proliferation, and viability is an important issue that is still under debate. We have therefore combined transient and stable expression in a human hepatocytic cell line (Huh7) of 3 full‐length NS5A sequences, isolated from patients with or without response to IFN‐α therapy.

Protracted, but not acute, hepatitis A virus infection is strongly associated with HLA‐DRB1*1301, a marker for pediatric autoimmune hepatitis

Leonardo Fainboim, Maria Cristina Cañero Velasco, Cintia Y. Marcos, Mirta Ciocca, Adriana Roy, Graciela Theiler, Monica Capucchio, Silvia Nuncifora, Livio Sala, Marta Zelazko – 30 December 2003 – HLA alleles are known to be associated with susceptibility to develop autoimmune hepatitis (AH), and hepatitis A virus (HAV) infection is postulated as a putative trigger for AH. We investigated whether HLA may influence the outcome of the HAV infection by studying 67 children with self‐limited and 39 children with protracted forms of this infection.

Characterization of liver T‐cell receptor γδ+ T cells obtained from individuals chronically infected with hepatitis C virus (HCV): Evidence for these T cells playing a role in the liver pathology associated with HCV infections

Chien‐Te K. Tseng, Emil Miskovsky, Michael Houghton, Gary R. Klimpel – 30 December 2003 – The pathogenic mechanisms involved in viral hepatitis are not completely understood. Evidence suggests that the pathology associated with hepatitis C virus (HCV) and hepatitis B virus (HBV) infections are a result of the immune response in the liver to these viruses. The livers of patients with viral hepatitis have been shown to contain elevated numbers of T cells expressing the γ/δ form of the T‐cell receptor for antigen (TCRγδ).

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