Gary A. Abrams, Michael K. Sanders, Michael B. Fallon – 30 December 2003 – Hepatopulmonary syndrome, arterial hypoxemia caused by intrapulmonary vasodilatation, occurs in approximately 10% of patients with cirrhosis. The severity of hypoxemia affects liver transplant candidacy and is associated with increased morbidity and mortality posttransplantation. Screening guidelines for detecting the presence of arterial hypoxemia do not exist.

Barbara Braden, Axel Thalhammer, Wolfram Schwarz, Christoph F. Dietrich – 30 December 2003

Mark W. Russo, Paul F. Jacques, Matthew Mauro, Pat Odell, Robert S. Brown – 30 December 2003 – Transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunts (TIPSs) are used to treat variceal hemorrhage and refractory ascites. We sought to determine factors associated with stenosis and mortality after TIPS placement in patients with end‐stage liver disease. This is a retrospective review of 90 TIPSs placed over a 3‐year period. Demographic, clinical, and biochemical parameters were analyzed in univariate analyses to determine their association with stenosis and death.

James F. Trotter, Nancy Stolpman, Michael Wachs, Thomas Bak, Marcelo Kugelmas, Igal Kam, Gregory T. Everson – 30 December 2003 – Two recent brief reports suggest that recipients of living donor liver transplants achieve higher levels of immunosuppressive agents than cadaveric (CAD) liver transplant recipients administered the same dose. These results could have important implications regarding the dosing of immunosuppressives in living donor liver transplant recipients.

François Durand, Giuseppe Maria Ettorre, Richard Douard, Marie‐Hélène Denninger, Alireza Kianmanesh, Daniele Sommacale, Olivier Farges, Dominique Valla, Jacques Belghiti – 30 December 2003 – Optimal safety for donors is a necessary condition for living related liver transplantation to expand. Although the risks for complications directly related to surgical intervention have been carefully evaluated, the extent and nature of other complications, such as pulmonary embolism, associated with living donation have not been clearly anticipated.

Ralf Nickel, Andreas Wunsch, Ulrich T. Egle, Ansgar W. Lohse, Gerd Otto – 30 December 2003 – The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of anxiety, depression, and coping on quality of life in patients after liver transplantation. Patients were asked to fill out a postal survey. Two hundred thirty‐six of 375 patients (63%) who entered the study returned the questionnaires, and 186 of these patients could be included in the assessment.

Nina Singh – 30 December 2003

Geoffrey W. McCaughan – 30 December 2003 – Abstract Unavailable. Please See Print Journal.

Hasan Yersiz, John F. Renz, Garrett Hisatake, Paulo R. Reichert, Nicholas J. Feduska, Susan Lerner, Douglas G. Farmer, R. Mark Ghobrial, Sunil Geevarghese, Angeles Baquerizo, Pauline Chen, Ronald W. Busuttil – 30 December 2003

Christopher E. Avendano, Patrick A. Flume, Prabhakar Baliga, David N. Lewin, Charlie Strange, Adrian Reuben – 30 December 2003 – Hepatopulmonary syndrome (HPS) is an infrequent complication of liver cirrhosis. Orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) has gained increasing acceptance as a treatment modality for HPS, although there have been reports of HPS developing after OLT with documented recurrence of cirrhosis. We describe the case of a 9‐year‐old boy who underwent OLT at 7 months of age because of biliary atresia.