Vladimir V. Kalinichenko, Dibyendu Bhattacharyya, Yan Zhou, Galina A. Gusarova, Wooram Kim, Brian Shin, Robert H. Costa – 30 December 2003 – Previous studies have shown that haploinsufficiency of the splanchnic and septum transversum mesoderm Forkhead Box (Fox) f1 transcriptional factor caused defects in lung and gallbladder development and that Foxf1 heterozygous (+/−) mice exhibited defective lung repair in response to injury.

Kelly A. Gebo, H. Franklin Herlong, Michael S. Torbenson, Mollie W. Jenckes, Geetanjali Chander, Khalil G. Ghanem, Samer S. El‐Kamary, Mark Sulkowski, Eric B. Bass – 30 December 2003 – This systematic review addresses 2 questions pertinent to the need for pretreatment liver biopsy in patients with chronic hepatitis C: how well do liver biopsy results predict treatment outcomes for chronic hepatitis C? How well do biochemical blood tests and serologic measures of fibrosis predict the biopsy findings in chronic hepatitis C?

Maureen M. Jonas – 30 December 2003 – An estimated 240,000 children in the United States have antibody to hepatitis C virus (HCV) and 68,000 to 100,000 are chronically infected with HCV. Acute HCV infection is rarely recognized in children outside of special circumstances such as a known exposure from an HCV‐infected mother or after blood transfusion. Most chronically infected children are asymptomatic and have normal or only mildly abnormal alanine aminotransferase levels.

Anouk T. Dev, Rhonda McCaw, Vijaya Sundararajan, Scott Bowden, William Sievert – 30 December 2003 – Hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotype and other host and viral factors influence treatment outcome in chronic HCV infection. We evaluated the effect of race and genotype on interferon and ribavirin treatment outcome in 70 Southeast Asian (SEA) and 50 white patients. Genotype was based on the 5' untranslated region (5'UTR) with a commonly used line probe assay (INNO‐LiPA HCV II) that may mistype genotype 7, 8, or 9 as 1b.

Maria Castedal, Rolf Olsson – 30 December 2003

Caroline C. Philpott – 30 December 2003 – Hereditary hemochromatosis is the most common genetic disorder occurring in persons of northern European descent, and the clinical hallmark of the disease is the gradual accumulation of iron in internal organs, especially the liver, heart, and pancreas, which ultimately leads to organ failure. HFE, the gene that is defective in the majority of cases, was identified in 1996 and, although the exact role that HFE plays in the uptake and utilization of iron is not yet clear, important aspects of HFE function are emerging.

Giorgio La Villa, Giuseppe Barletta, Roberto Giulio Romanelli, Giacomo Laffi, Riccarda Del Bene, Francesco Vizzutti, Pietro Pantaleo, Valeria Mazzocchi, Paolo Gentilini – 30 December 2003 – In patients with cirrhosis and portal hypertension, standing induces a reduction in cardiac index (CI) and an increase in systemic vascular resistance index.

Damien Jeantet, Isabelle Chemin, Bernard Mandrand, Fabien Zoulim, Christian Trepo, Alan Kay – 30 December 2003 – In a study of surface antigen‐negative, but weakly hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA‐positive, patients, we were able to amplify and clone whole HBV genomes from the serum of a cirrhotic patient. Sequencing showed that the patient harbored two different HBV populations, one of genotype A and the other of genotype D, with the genotype D genome apparently predominating.

John G. McHutchison, Thierry Poynard, Rafael Esteban‐Mur, Gary L. Davis, Zachary D. Goodman, Joann Harvey, Mei‐Hsiu Ling, Jean Jacques Garaud, Janice K. Albrecht, Keyur Patel, Jules L. Dienstag – 30 December 2003 – The clinical use of measuring hepatic hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA before and after therapy in patients with chronic hepatitis C has been assessed in a number of small clinical trials. Viral clearance from the liver may be a better marker of long‐term response than eradication of serum HCV RNA.

E. Anthony Jones – 30 December 2003