M J Tong, L M Blatt, J G McHutchison, R L Co, A Conrad – 30 December 2003 – Patients with chronic hepatitis C (n = 103) were treated for 24 weeks with interferon alfa 2b and followed up for 24 weeks after cessation of therapy (week 48). When hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA at week 48 was used to assess interferon response, 15 (14.6%) were virological complete responders, and all have remained HCV RNA negative for a mean of 3 years. At week 48, 3 of 15 virological complete responders had elevated alanine transaminase (ALT) values.

R P Perrillo – 30 December 2003 – This article reviews the ways in which liver biopsy provides a resource to the clinician when making management decisions for patients with chronic hepatitis C. Liver biopsy provides information about the extent and distribution of inflammation and allows grading and staging of the disease (the amount of fibrosis). Furthermore, the liver biopsy allows some assessment of the rate of disease progression whenever the date of onset of infection is known.

E B Keeffe, F B Hollinger – 30 December 2003 – Chronic hepatitis C is an insidious disease associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Currently, the only approved therapies for chronic hepatitis C are the α interferons. Consensus interferon (CIFN) is a nonnatural, synthetic, recombinant type I interferon derived by assigning the most commonly observed amino acid in each position of several α interferon nonallelic subtypes to generate a consensus sequence. The efficacy and safety of CIFN in the treatment of chronic hepatitis C were assessed in two large phase 3 trials.

Jane Collier, Jenny Heathcote – 30 December 2003

Motoko Sasaki, Yasuni Nakanuma, Young S. Kim – 30 December 2003 – Mucin plays an important role in the development of hepatoliths, which are formed within the intrahepatic large bile ducts. To date, eight apomucins, components of mucin, have been identified.

Masahiro Arai, Satoshi Mochida, Akihiko Ohno, Shin Arai, Kenji Fujiwara – 30 December 2003 – Gut‐derived substances can activate Kupffer cells to provoke hepatic necrosis after partial hepatectomy in rats. A similar situation may occur during orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT), as congestion in the intestinal wall, caused by portal vein occlusion, is inevitable during the operation. The contribution of such substances to liver injury following OLT was investigated in rats.

Toshiyuki Maruyama, Shoji Kuwata, Kazuhiko Koike, Shiro Iino, Kiyomi Yasuda, Hiroshi Yotsuyanagi, Kyoji Moriya, Hisato Maekawa, Haruki Yamada, Yoichi Shibata, David R. Milich – 30 December 2003 – Precore hepatitis B virus (HBV) mutants may gradually prevail during or after seroconversion (SC) from hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) to hepatitis B e antigen antibody (anti‐HBe) status in many chronic hepatitis B (CH‐B) patients.

Nader Ghebranious, Stewart Sell – 30 December 2003 – The major risk factors for human liver cancer: hepatitis B virus (HBV) related liver injury, male gender, aflatoxin exposure, and p53 expression, are evaluated and compared in experimental transgenic mouse models. Transgenic mice that express hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) in their liver and develop liver tumors at 18 months of age (HBV+ mice) were bred to p53 null mice (p53−/−) to produce mice p53+/−, HBV+ mice.

Alex B. Lentsch, Hiroyuki Yoshidome, William G. Cheadle, Frederick N. Miller, Michael J. Edwards – 30 December 2003 – Hepatic injury induced by ischemia and reperfusion is an important clinical problem after liver resection or transplantation. Neutrophils are known to mediate the organ injury, but the precise mechanisms leading to hepatic neutrophil recruitment are undefined. Two CXC chemokines, macrophage inflammatory protein‐2 (MIP‐2) and KC, are potently chemotactic for neutrophils in vitro and have been reported to be involved in neutrophil‐dependent inflammatory tissue injury.

Alexander Swidsinski, Michael Khilkin, Hartmut Pahlig, Sonja Swidsinski, Friedrich Priem – 30 December 2003 – The role of bacteria in gallstone formation could not be conclusively evaluated until bacterial presence or absence in a stone was consistently shown. Cultural bacteriologic investigations at the time of cholecystectomy, however, led to the assumption that cholesterol gallstones were free of bacteria.