Piero Amodio, Piergiorgio Marchetti, Franco Del Piccolo, Giovanni Campo, Cristiano Rizzo, Rosa Maria Iemmolo, Giorgio Gerunda, Lorenza Caregaro, Carlo Merkel, Angelo Gatta – 30 December 2003 – Attentional dysfunction, which influences overall cognitive productivity, is not well characterized in cirrhotic patients. The aim of this study was to clarify the features of covert visual attention orienting in cirrhotics without overt hepatic encephalopathy. One hundred consecutive cirrhotic patients and 40 controls were enrolled.

Luca S. Belli, Luciano de Carlis, Gianfranco Rondinara, Alberto B. Alberti, Giorgio Bellati, Andrea De Gasperi, Domenico Forti, G. Idèo – 30 December 2003 – Maintenance of adequate immunosuppression and avoidance of side‐effects are the goals of long‐term management of all organ‐transplanted patients. We here report the final results of a prospective, randomized trial comparing early cyclosporine monotherapy versus double‐drug therapy (cyclosporine and steroids) in adult liver transplantation patients.

Antonina Smedile, John L. Casey, Paul J. Cote, Marilena Durazzo, Bruna Lavezzo, Robert H. Purcell, Mario Rizzetto, John L. Gerin – 30 December 2003 – Patients receiving orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) because of type D hepatitis frequently exhibit what appears to be an autonomous, or “isolated,” hepatitis D virus (HDV) infection following the transplantation, with no evidence of hepatitis B virus (HBV) in the graft or in the serum.

Tomohiko Aihara, Shinzaburo Noguchi, Yasuo Miyoshi, Hiroshi Nakano, Yo Sasaki, Yusuke Nakamura, Morito Monden, Shingi Imaoka – 30 December 2003 – Allelic imbalance of the insulin‐like growth factor II (IGF II) gene expression is often seen in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

Alexander S. Petrides, Timmye Stanley, Dwight E. Matthews, Christoph Vogt, Andrew J. Bush, Helen Lambeth – 30 December 2003 – Insulin resistance is present in nearly all patients with cirrhosis, but its etiology remains unknown. Chronic hyperinsulinemia has been suspected as a potential candidate, and we therefore tested the hypothesis that, in cirrhosis, prolonged reduction of the hyperinsulinemia restores insulin sensitivity.

Jean‐Pierre Bronowicki, Marie‐Anne Loriot, Valérie Thiers, Yves Grignon, Anna Linda Zignego, Christian Bréchot – 30 December 2003 – The issue of infection of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) by the hepatitis C virus (HCV) has potentially important implications, but is still debated. We have used the severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) mouse model to test for the persistence of HCV in PBMC. Hematopoietic cells isolated from 14 subjects infected by HCV were inoculated intraperitoneally into SCID mice.

Christine Hammond, Lennox Jeffers, Brian I. Carr, Daniela Simon – 30 December 2003 – Primary hepatocellular carcinomas (HCCs) of different etiologies were studied to determine the rate of alteration of several genetic regions previously associated with the HCC phenotype. The focus of our study was to identify the frequency of genetic alterations within individual HCCs and their distribution among male and female cases.

Yasushi Shiratori, Osamu Yokosuka, Ryo Nakata, Masashi Ihori, Katsutaro Hirota, Tetsuro Katamoto, Tadao Unuma, Ken'ichi Okano, Yusei Ikeda, Masanori Hirano, Tateo Kawase, Susumu Takano, Kazunori Matsumoto, Yasuo Ohashi, Masao Omata – 30 December 2003 – Because interferon therapy exhibits low efficacy for cirrhotic patients infected with hepatitis C virus, this prospective study was conducted to determine effective interferon regimens tailored to treatment response by monitoring HCV RNA status.

Jean‐Paul Thièry, Istvàn Blazsek, Stéphane Legras, Sylvie Marion, Michel Reynes, Aurora Anjo, René Adam, Jean Louis Misset – 30 December 2003 – Primary hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is probably one of the most common fatal forms of liver cancer. We have established permanent cell lines from diethylnitrosamine/phenobarbital induced primary rat liver carcinomas to study new anticancer therapies. The rat hepatocellular carcinoma cell lines (HR‐2, HR‐3, and HR‐4) have been maintained in culture for over 3 years. They form tumors when transplantedscorim into young syngeneic rats.

Khaled Selim, Neil Kaplowitz – 30 December 2003