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

Reiner Wiest, Roberto J. Groszmann – 30 December 2003

Oliviero Riggio, Stefania Angeloni, Giorgia Nicolini, Manuela Merli, Carlo Merkel – 30 December 2003

Peter Ferenci, Alan Lockwood, Kevin Mullen, Ralph Tarter, Karin Weissenborn, Andres T. Blei – 30 December 2003 – Research on hepatic encephalopathy is hampered by the imprecise definition of this disabling complication of liver disease. Under this light, the Organisation Mondiale de Gastroentérologie commissioned a Working Party to reach a consensus in this area and to present it at the 11th World Congress of Gastroenterology in Vienna (1998). The Working Party continued its work thereafter and now present their final report.

Magdalena Salcedo, Javier Vaquero, Rafael Bañares, Margarita Rodríguez‐Mahou, Emilio Alvarez, Jose Luis Vicario, Alicia Hernández‐Albújar, José Luis R. Tíscar, Diego Rincón, Sonia Alonso, Alejandro De Diego, Gerardo Clemente – 30 December 2003 – Graft dysfunction associated with autoimmune phenomena has been recently described in liver transplant recipients without previous autoimmune disease. However, the natural history, diagnostic criteria, and definitive therapeutic approach of de novo autoimmune hepatitis (de novo AIH) are poorly understood.

Isabelle Auvigne, Virginie Pichard, Dominique Aubert, Nelly Robillard, Nicolas Ferry – 30 December 2003 – Genetic labeling using recombinant retroviruses is a powerful strategy for the study of cell lineage in the liver. However, this type of vector is only able to infect dividing cells. The synthetic steroid cyproterone acetate (CPA) is mitogenic and carcinogenic in the adult rat liver. In this study, we used retroviral vectors carrying the nuclear targeted β‐galactosidase gene to selectively label and follow the fate of hepatocytes dividing on administration of CPA.

Toshiaki Ninomiya, Koichiro Mihara, Kazuo Fushimi, Yoshitake Hayashi, Tomoko Hashimoto‐Tamaoki, Taiki Tamaoki – 30 December 2003 – We investigated mechanisms regulating expression of α‐fetoprotein (AFP) in 3 human hepatoma cell lines, HuH‐7, HepG2, and huH‐1, producing high, medium, and low levels of AFP, respectively. The silencer, a negative cis‐acting element of the AFP gene, was highly activated in huH‐1 and HepG2 to repress AFP enhancer activity by 91%, whereas only 26% repression was observed in HuH‐7.

Satheesh Nair, Sumita Verma, Paul J. Thuluvath – 30 December 2003 – Studies assessing morbidity and mortality in obese patients undergoing orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) have produced conflicting results, mainly because of the small sample size. The objective of our study was to determine graft and patient survival in obese adults receiving OLT in the U.S. between 1988 through 1996 using the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) database. Among the 23,675 transplantations performed during the 9‐year study period, 18,172 (75%) patients fulfilled the inclusion criteria.

Yoshiya Tahashi, Koichi Matsuzaki, Masataka Date, Katsunori Yoshida, Fukiko Furukawa, Yasushi Sugano, Masanori Matsushita, Yasuo Himeno, Yutaka Inagaki, Kyoichi Inoue – 30 December 2003 – During chronic liver injury, transforming growth factor β (TGF‐β) plays a prominent role in stimulating liver fibrogenesis by myofibroblast‐like cells derived from hepatic stellate cells (HSCs). On the other hand, Smad 7 was recently shown to antagonize the TGF‐β–induced activation of signal‐transducing Smads (2 and 3).