S D Turley, D K Spady, J M Dietschy – 30 December 2003 – The objective of these studies was to investigate the comparative physiology and regulation of bile acid metabolism in the male Golden Syrian hamster by measuring the rate of fecal bile acid excretion and bile acid pool size in animals fed a cereal‐based diet either alone, or with added cholesterol or cholestyramine. In group‐housed hamsters fed only the plain diet fecal bile acid excretion in animals at 6, 10, and 15 weeks of age averaged 11.0, 8.0, and 6.9 μmol/d per 100 g body weight (bw), respectively.

A De Santis, A F Attili, S G Corradini, E Scafato, A Cantagalli, C De Luca, G Pinto, D Lisi, L Capocaccia – 30 December 2003 – Data on the association between cholelithiasis and diabetes often are controversial and are mostly based on autopsies or on hospital series.

M Ohtsuka, M Miyazaki, Y Kondo, N Nakajima – 30 December 2003 – The aim of this study was to assess the hypothesis that hepatic failure after extensive hepatectomy in patients with obstructive jaundice (OJ) may be mediated by polymorphonuclear neutrophils (PMN). In the OJ group, rats underwent a partial hepatectomy of 78% after 2 weeks of cholestasis and subsequent external biliary drainage for 5 days. In the sham‐operated control group, rats were partially hepatectomized 19 days after the sham surgery.

R Pagan, I Martin, M Llobera, S Vilaro – 30 December 2003 – Neonatal rat hepatocytes cultured in the absence of added growth factors dedifferentiate by epithelial‐mesenchymal transition (EMT). This involves the loss of their typical differentiation markers, the acquisition of a migrating morphology, and a change in the expression of the intermediate filament (IF) proteins.

I Okazaki, N Wada, M Nakano, A Saito, K Takasaki, M Doi, K Kameyama, Y Otani, K Kubochi, M Niioka, T Watanabe, K Maruyama – 30 December 2003 – The histological observation that well‐differentiated cancer cells in early hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) invade portal tracts and/or fibrous bands and that these fibrous tissues then disappear suggests the participation of matrix metalloproteinase‐1 (MMP‐1) in the degradation of fibrous tissue.

S Friman, J Svanvik – 30 December 2003

E C Jazwinska, L W Powell – 30 December 2003 – Background/Aims: Hereditary hemochromatosis (HH), which affects some 1 in 400 and has an estimated carrier frequency of 1 in 10 individuals of Northern European descent, results in multi‐organ dysfunction caused by increased iron deposition, and is treatable if detected early. Using linkage‐disequilibrium and full haplotype analysis, we have identified a 250kb region more than 3 megabases telomeric of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) that is identical‐by‐descent in 85% of patient chromosomes.

C Duvoux, D Cherqui, V Di Martino, J Métreau, A Salvat, J Lauzet, P Fagniez, D Dhumeaux – 30 December 2003 – Arterial hypertension is frequent in liver transplant recipients on cyclosporine A (CsA). Nicardipine is a calcium channel blocker (CCB) that has been shown to be efficient in controlling postoperative hypertension. However, its use has been limited in organ recipients because of its reported interaction with CsA metabolism. In this report, we studied the results of the long‐term use of nicardipine after liver transplantation.

A Francavilla, N L Vujanovic, L Polimeno, A Azzarone, A Iacobellis, A Deleo, M Hagiya, T L Whiteside, T E Starzl – 30 December 2003 – Fine balanced sequential changes of the levels of circulating hepatotrophic factors are essential for normal liver regeneration. Our recent studies have indicated that liver‐resident natural killer (NK) cells are important regulators of liver regeneration and have raised the possibility that hepatotrophic factors might mediate their activities through NK cells.

G Porto, C Vicente, M A Teixeira, O Martins, J M Cabeda, R Lacerda, C Gonçalves, J Fraga, G Macedo, B M Silva, H Alves, B Justiça, M de Sousa – 30 December 2003 – Hemochromatosis is a hereditary iron‐overload disease linked to HLA. The clinical expression of hemochromatosis is influenced by sex and age. However, other factors must account for the notorious heterogeneity of expression of the disease independent of sex, age, and HLA phenotype.