Zeid Kayali, Victor E. Buckwold, Bridget Zimmerman, Warren N. Schmidt – 30 December 2003 – Approximately 40% of patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection develop detectable serum cryoglobulins or cryoprecipitates (CP), although most do not show clinical or physical signs of syndromic cryoglobulinemia. Although association of HCV with the extrahepatic complications of cryoglobulinemia is widely recognized, the relationship of cryoglobulinemia with liver disease is unclear.

Diego Vergani, Giorgina Mieli‐Vergani – 30 December 2003

Pere Ginès, Mónica Guevara – 30 December 2003

Béatrice Seignères, Christian Pichoud, Perrine Martin, Philip Furman, Christian Trépo, Fabien Zoulim – 30 December 2003 – To design combination strategies for chronic hepatitis B therapy, we evaluated in vitro the inhibitory activity of 4 nucleoside analogs, (−)FTC, L‐FMAU, DXG, and DAPD, in comparison with lamivudine (3TC) and PMEA.

George K. K. Lau, Ming‐Liang He, Daniel Y. T. Fong, Angeline Bartholomeusz, Wing‐yan Au, Albert K. W. Lie, Stephen Locarnini, Raymond Liang – 30 December 2003 – Exacerbation of hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a serious cause of morbidity and mortality in hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg)‐positive patients undergoing transplantation. Our aim was to evaluate the effectiveness of lamivudine to prevent hepatitis due to exacerbation of HBV in HBsAg‐positive patients treated with allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation.

Ping Zhao, Thomas F. Kalhorn, John T. Slattery – 30 December 2003 – Chronic alcohol consumption may potentiate acetaminophen (APAP) hepatotoxicity through enhanced formation of N‐acetyl‐p‐benzoquinone imine (NAPQI) via induction of cytochrome P450 2E1 (CYP2E1). However, CYP2E1 induction appears to be insufficient to explain the claimed magnitude of the interaction. We assessed the role of selective depletion of liver mitochondrial glutathione (GSH) by chronic ethanol. Rats were fed the Lieber‐DeCarli diet for 10 days or 6 weeks.

Moritoshi Kinoshita, Masahiko Miyata – 30 December 2003 – Genetic alterations associated with human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) have been reported previously, but are not sufficient to specify differences of HCCs from precancerous diseases of the liver, such as hepatitis, hepatic fibrosis, and cirrhosis. In the present study, we performed differential gene display analysis (DGDA) to clarify the specific genetic alterations associated with gene expression changes in the course of development of HCC from chronic viral hepatitis.

W. Ray Kim, Robert S. Brown, Norah A. Terrault, Hashem El‐Serag – 30 December 2003

Pascal Lebray, Yves Benhamou, Stanislas Pol, Robert P. Myers, Thierry Poynard, Vincent Di Martino – 30 December 2003

Harmeet Malhi, Pallavi annamaneni, Sanjeev Slehria, Brigid Joseph, Kuldeep K. Bhargava, Christopher J. Palestro, Phyllis M. Novikoff, Sanjeev Gupta – 30 December 2003 – To determine whether disruption of the hepatic sinusoidal endothelium will facilitate engraftment of transplanted cells, we treated Fischer 344 (F344) rats lacking dipeptidyl peptidase IV (DPPIV) activity with cyclophosphamide (CP). Electron microscopy showed endothelial injury within 6 hours following CP, and, after 24 and 48 hours, the endothelium was disrupted in most hepatic sinusoids.