Stefan Wirth, Thomas Lang, Stephan Gehring, Patrick Gerner – 30 December 2003 – Treatment with alfa‐interferon alone yielded poor results in children with chronic hepatitis C and was not generally recommended. Owing to limited experience with combination therapy in children, the aim of the study was to evaluate the efficacy and tolerability of alfa‐interferon 2b in combination with ribavirin in these patients with different routes of viral transmission.

Patrick S. Kamath – 30 December 2003

Manal M. Hassan, Lu‐Yu Hwang, Chiq J. Hatten, Mark Swaim, Donghui Li, James L. Abbruzzese, Palmer Beasley, Yehuda Z. Patt – 30 December 2003 – Risk factors associated with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are well documented, but the synergisms between these risk factors are not well examined. We conducted a hospital‐based, case‐control study among 115 HCC patients and 230 non–liver cancer controls. Cases and controls were pathologically diagnosed at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and were matched by 5‐year age groups, sex, and year of diagnosis.

John G. McHutchison, Keyur Patel – 30 December 2003 – Currently available therapies for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C are effective in half of patients, but are expensive, often poorly tolerated, and unsuitable for certain patient populations. The ideal therapy would be highly effective, orally bioavailable, have minimal side effects, be cost effective, and suitable for the majority of patients with hepatitis C.

Brian R. Edlin – 30 December 2003 – Injection drug users constitute the largest group of persons infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV) in the United States, and most new infections occur in drug users. Controlling hepatitis C in the U.S. population, therefore, will require developing, testing, and implementing effective prevention and treatment strategies for persons who inject drugs. Fortunately, a substantial body of research and clinical experience exists on the prevention and management of chronic viral diseases among injection drug users.

Doris B. Strader – 30 December 2003 – Managing patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection consists primarily of antiviral treatment, currently with peginterferon and ribavirin. Unfortunately, treatment recommendations derive largely from trials that have focused on highly selected patient populations. As a consequence of the strict inclusion and exclusion criteria in these studies, more than half of all HCV‐infected patients would be ineligible for enrollment. Even among the selected patients enrolled into studies, only 50% achieve a sustained virological response (SVR).

Chien‐Jen Chen, Ding‐Shinn Chen – 30 December 2003

Raza Malik, Neil Mellor, Clare Selden, Humphrey Hodgson – 30 December 2003 – This study investigates the effects of administering a primary mitogen, triiodothyronine (T3), at the time of 70% partial hepatectomy (PH) in the rat, thus combining the 2 distinct pathways of liver growth: direct hyperplasia and compensatory regeneration. T3 enhances the proliferative response of hepatocytes within the liver following PH.

Narci Teoh, Isabelle Leclercq, Aileen Dela Pena, Geoffrey Farrell – 30 December 2003 – Tumor necrosis factor α (TNF‐α) is implicated in the pathogenesis of hepatic ischemia reperfusion injury but can also prime hepatocytes to enter the cell cycle. Ischemic preconditioning protects against ischemia‐reperfusion (IR) liver injury and is associated with activation of nuclear factor κB (NF‐κB) and cell cycle entry.

Tuvia Gilat, Alicia Leikin‐Frenkel, Ilana Goldiner, Christine Juhel, Huguette Lafont, Diana Gobbi, Fred M. Konikoff – 30 December 2003 – Fatty acid bile acid conjugates (FABACs) are a new family of synthetic molecules designed to solubilize biliary cholesterol. They were shown to prevent and dissolve cholesterol gallstones in inbred C57L/J mice fed a lithogenic, high‐fat diet (HFD). In these mice, fatty liver was observed in the controls but not in the FABAC‐treated ones.