Federico Villamil, Stephen Pollard – 20 April 2004 – Adjusting cyclosporine (CsA) dose based on blood concentration at 2 hours after dose (C2) has been shown in prospective clinical trials to reduce the risk of rejection compared with conventional trough monitoring. In addition, it provides equivalent efficacy to tacrolimus in liver transplant patients, with a favorable safety profile. Target C2 should be defined on an individual basis depending on adjunctive therapy and the level of exposure required.

Arun J Sanyal – 25 March 2004

Manuel Romero‐Gómez, Lourdes Grande, Inés Camacho – 25 March 2004 – Oral glutamine challenge (OGC) has been found to be safe, and an altered response predicts elevated risk of overt hepatic encephalopathy (HE) in patients with minimal hepatic encephalopathy (MHE). We assessed the survival prognosis of patients with cirrhosis, but without current overt HE, who have an altered OGC and MHE. MHE was inferred using 3 neuropsychological tests. Venous ammonia concentrations were measured pre‐ and post‐60 minutes of a 10 g oral glutamine load.

25 March 2004

Ian P.J. Alwayn, Patrick J. Javid, Kathleen M. Gura, Vânia Nosé, Mario Ollero, Mark Puder – 25 March 2004

Yung‐Chang Chen, Pere Ginès, Jianhui Yang, Sandra N. Summer, Sandor Falk, Nash S. Russell, Robert W. Schrier – 25 March 2004 – Vascular heme oxygenase (HO) regulates vascular tone in normal conditions and in some pathologic circumstances (e.g., sepsis). However, its possible role in the pathogenesis of arterial vasodilation in cirrhosis is unknown. To address this question, the expression and activity of HO in arterial vessels was studied in rats at 1, 2, and 4 weeks after bile duct ligation (BDL) or sham operation.

Leon A. Adams, Ariel Feldstein, Keith D. Lindor, Paul Angulo – 25 March 2004 – Patients with hypopituitarism develop a phenotype similar to metabolic syndrome with central obesity and diabetes. Similarly, patients with hypothalamic damage may develop central obesity, insulin resistance, and hyperphagia. We sought to examine the clinical associations between hypopituitarism, hypothalamic dysfunction, and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).

Vlad Ratziu, Françoise Imbert‐Bismut, Djamila Messous, Thierry Poynard – 25 March 2004

Simon C.H. Yu, Simon S.M. Ho, Wan Y. Lau, Deacons T.K. Yeung, Edmund H.Y. Yuen, Paul S.F. Lee, Constantine Metreweli – 25 March 2004 – This study aims to compare the therapeutic effectiveness of continuous catheter drainage versus intermittent needle aspiration in the percutaneous treatment of pyogenic liver abscesses.

David A. Rudnick, Yunjun Liao, Jae‐Koo An, Louis J. Muglia, David H. Perlmutter, Jeffrey H. Teckman – 25 March 2004 – α‐1‐Antitrypsin (α1‐AT) deficiency is the most common cause of metabolic pediatric liver disease. Hepatocellular injury is caused by toxicity of the mutant α‐1‐antitrypsin Z (α1‐ATZ) molecule retained within hepatocytes. In these studies, we used the PiZ transgenic mouse model of α1‐AT deficiency to examine hepatocellular proliferation in response to chronic liver injury resulting from this metabolic disease.