Irina G. Kessova, Ye‐Shih Ho, Swan Thung, Arthur I. Cederbaum – 30 December 2003 – Because alcoholic liver disease has been linked to oxidative stress, we investigated the effect of a compromised antioxidant defense system, Cu, Zn‐superoxide dismutase (Sod1) deficiency, on alcohol‐induced liver injury. C57BL/129SV wild‐type (Sod1+/+) and Sod1 knockout (Sod1−/−) mice were fed dextrose or ethanol (10% of total calories) liquid diets for 3 weeks.

David Milich, T. Jake Liang – 30 December 2003 – The function of the hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) is largely unknown because it is not required for viral assembly, replication, or infection. In this report we chronicle clinical and experimental studies in an attempt to understand the role of HBeAg in natural infection. These studies largely have focused on clinical‐pathologic features of HBeAg‐negative variants in acute and chronic HBV infection, mutational analysis in animal models of hepadnavirus infection, and the use of transgenic murine models.

Hiroyasu Ito, Kazuki Ando, Toshinori Nakayama, Masaru Taniguchi, Takayuki Ezaki, Kuniaki Saito, Masao Takemura, Kenji Sekikawa, Michio Imawari, Mitsuru Seishima, Hisataka Moriwaki – 30 December 2003 – Although we have previously demonstrated that IL‐12 stimulation increases the number of hepatic natural killer (NK) T (NKT) cells and enhances liver injury during the early phase of liver regeneration, the role of NKT cells has remained unknown.

Nadim Joni Shah, Heiko Neeb, Maxim Zaitsev, Sven Steinhoff, Gerald Kircheis, Katrin Amunts, Dieter Häussinger, Karl Zilles – 30 December 2003 – Changes are shown in the spin‐lattice (T1) relaxation time caused by the putative deposition of manganese in various brain regions of hepatic encephalopathy (HE) patients using a novel and fast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) method for quantitative relaxation time mapping. A new method, T1 mapping with partial inversion recovery (TAPIR), was used to obtain a series of T1‐weighted images to produce T1 maps.

Pamela B. Sylvestre, Alvaro R. Gonzalez‐Koch, Michael B. Ishitani – 30 December 2003

Michael Oertel, Frieder Berr, Sabine Schröder, Rene Schwarz, Andrea Tannapfel, Michael Wenzke, Peter Lamesch, Johann Hauss, Kay Kohlhaw – 30 December 2003 – Acute rejection of hepatic allografts does not show consistent association with the number of mismatches of HLA classes I and II. Therefore, we investigated the relation between specific donor or recipient HLA antigens and the occurrence of acute rejection.

William J. Wall, Paul J. Marotta – 30 December 2003 – Key Points

Thomas P. Beresford, Gregory T. Everson – 30 December 2003

Amadeo Marcos – 30 December 2003

S. Forrest Dodson, Michael E. de Vera, C. Andrew Bonham, David A. Geller, Jorge Rakela, John J. Fung – 30 December 2003 – The prevention of recurrent hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection after orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) with hepatitis B immunoglobulin (HBIG) is expensive and requires indefinite parenteral administration. Lamivudine is a nucleoside analogue capable of inhibiting HBV replication.