Lawrence Serfaty, Dominique Thabut, Fabien Zoulim, Tony Andreani, Olivier Chazouillères, Nicolas Carbonell, Alain Loria, Raoul Poupon – 30 December 2003 – Sustained viral suppression using monotherapy with interferon alfa (IFN‐α) or lamivudine can only be achieved in a small percentage of patients with chronic hepatitis B. The concomitant administration of lamivudine and IFN‐α does not enhance efficacy. We postulated that the optimal timing of therapy might be sequential treatment with lamivudine and IFN‐α.

Klaus M. Breiner, Heinz Schaller, Percy A. Knolle – 30 December 2003 – The liver is a target for many infectious agents, most notably hepatitis viruses. However, several receptor molecules identified so far for hepatitis viruses were found to be ubiquitously expressed and can thus not account for efficient liver targeting. Using a model hepatitis B virus, the duck hepatitis B virus (DHBV), we have obtained data indicating that scavenging liver sinusoidal endothelial cells (LSEC), rather than hepatocytes themselves, play the key role in the initial uptake of viral pathogens into the liver.

Anthony J. Freeman, Gregory J. Dore, Matthew G. Law, Max Thorpe, Jan Von Overbeck, Andrew R. Lloyd, George Marinos, John M. Kaldor – 30 December 2003 – To gain a clearer understanding of the rate of progression to cirrhosis and its determinants in chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, a systematic review of published epidemiologic studies that incorporated assessment for cirrhosis has been undertaken. Inclusion criteria were more than 20 cases of chronic HCV infection, and information on either age of subjects or duration of infection.

Constance E. Ruhl, James E. Everhart – 30 December 2003 – Obesity increases the risk of gallstones, especially in women. Most gallbladder disease studies have used body mass index (BMI) as a measure of overall adiposity, although BMI does not distinguish between fat and lean body mass. Central adiposity may also increase gallstone risk, although this is less well studied. Leptin is a peptide whose serum concentration is highly correlated with total body fat mass.

Preeti R. John, Paul J. Thuluvath – 30 December 2003 – The influence of preexisting diabetes mellitus (DM) on outcome after orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) has not been well defined. The objective of our study was to compare the morbidity and mortality after OLT in 57 patients with preexisting DM (3 type I, 54 type II) with 114 age‐, sex‐, and race‐matched patients without DM (case controls). The demographics were similar in both groups. Pretransplantation serum creatinine was significantly higher in the diabetic group compared with case controls.

Sarbjit S. Nijjar, Heather A. Crosby, Lorraine Wallace, Stefan G. Hubscher, Alastair J. Strain – 30 December 2003 – Notch signaling is an evolutionarily conserved mechanism, used to regulate cell fate decisions. Four Notch receptors have been identified in man (Notch‐1 to ‐4). In this study, semiquantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR) and immunohistochemistry were used to examine the expression pattern of Notch receptor genes in whole adult human liver and isolated liver cell preparations.

Adrian Reuben – 30 December 2003

Andres T. Blei – 30 December 2003

Xavier Aldeguer, Fotini Debonera, Abraham Shaked, Alyssa M. Krasinkas, Andrew E. Gelman, Xingyi Que, Gideon A. Zamir, Shungo Hiroyasu, Kellen K. Kovalovich, Rebecca Taub, Kim M. Olthoff – 30 December 2003 – Interleukin‐6 (IL‐6) is required for normal liver regeneration, but the specific cellular source of this growth factor is unknown. We investigated whether this signal originates from the resident macrophage, the Kupffer cell.

Maura Dandri, Martin R. Burda, Alexander Bürkle, David M. Zuckerman, Hans Will, Charles E. Rogler, Heimer Greten, Joerg Petersen – 30 December 2003 – Chronic infection with hepatitis B virus (HBV) is associated with an increased risk for the development of cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Although clonal HBV DNA integrations are detected in nearly all HCCs the role of these integrations in hepatocarcinogenesis is poorly understood. We have used a cloning protocol that allows studying the frequency and the natural history of HBV DNA integrations in cell culture.