M. Nieves Görbig, Pere Ginès, Ramón Bataller, Josep M. Nicolás, Eva Garcia‐Ramallo, Ester Tobías, Esther Titos, María Jes Rey, Joan Clària, Vicente Arroyo, Juan Rodés – 30 December 2003 – Hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) participate in the regulation of hepatic microcirculation and have receptors for many vasoconstrictor factors. It is unknown whether HSCs have receptors for circulating vasodilators such as atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP). This study investigated the presence of ANP receptors in human HSCs and whether ANP antagonizes the effects of endothelin‐1 in these cells.

W. Ray Kim, Russell H. Wiesner, John J. Poterucha, Terry M. Therneau, Michael Malinchoc, Joanne T. Benson, Jeffrey S. Crippin, Goran B. Klintmalm, Jorge Rakela, Thomas E. Starzl, Ruud A. Krom, Roger W. Evans, E. Rolland Dickson – 30 December 2003 – The aim of our study was to quantitatively assess the impact of hepatic retransplantation on patient and graft survival and resource utilization. We studied patients undergoing hepatic retransplantation among 447 transplant recipients with primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) and primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) at 3 transplantation centers.

Daryl T. Lau, Edward Doo, Yoon Park, David E. Kleiner, Peter Schmid, Mary C. Kuhns, Jay H. Hoofnagle – 30 December 2003 – Chronic delta hepatitis is a severe form of chronic liver disease caused by hepatitis delta virus (HDV) infection superimposed on chronic hepatitis B or the hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) carrier state. Therapy of delta hepatitis is currently unsatisfactory. We have evaluated lamivudine (3‐thiacytidine), an oral nucleoside analogue with marked effects against hepatitis B, as therapy in 5 patients with chronic hepatitis D.

Càndid Villanueva, Jordi Ortiz, Miriam Sàbat, Adolfo Gallego, Xavier Torras, German Soriano, Sergio Sáinz, Jaume Boadas, Xavier Cussó, Carlos Guarner, Joaquim Balanzó – 30 December 2003 – Recent trials have shown that somatostatin (SMT) is as effective as sclerotherapy in the treatment of acute variceal bleeding and that the combination of both treatments is more effective than sclerotherapy alone.

Tushar Patel – 30 December 2003

Akito Sakai, Shuichi Kaneko, Masao Honda, Eiki Matsushita, Kenichi Kobayashi – 30 December 2003 – Hepatitis C virus (HCV) has been known to infect hosts as a quasispecies. Several reports have shown this using serum samples, but there is little information about quasispecies in the liver. In this study, we evaluated quasispecies in serum and in 3 different parts of the liver in 8 patients with varying severity of chronic hepatitis C by calculating nucleotide diversity, entropy, type of substitution and by phylogenetic analysis.

Georgios Germanidis, Corinne Haioun, Daniel Dhumeaux, Felix Reyes, Jean‐Michel Pawlotsky – 30 December 2003

Guido Torzilli, Masami Minagawa, Tadatoshi Takayama, Kazuto Inoue, Ai‐Min Hui, Keiichi Kubota, Kuni Ohtomo, Masatoshi Makuuchi – 30 December 2003 – Fine‐needle biopsy (FNB) is associated with problems, such as tumor seeding, which are probably underestimated. The aim of this study was to validate prospectively the accuracy of our diagnostic work‐up without FNB, for defining indications for surgery in a cohort of patients with focal liver lesions (FLLs).

Valerie Paradis, Delphine Dargere, Michel Vidaud, Anne‐Charlotte de Gouville, Stephane Huet, Vincent Martinez, Jean‐Michel Gauthier, Nathalie Ba, Rodolphe Sobesky, Vlad Ratziu, Pierre Bedossa – 30 December 2003 – Connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) stimulatesin vitrofibroblast proliferation and extracellular matrix synthesis. The aim of this study was to assess the role of CTGF in liver fibrogenesis.

30 December 2003