Jeanne LaBerge, Vickie A. Feldstein – 30 December 2003

Paresh N. Soni, David Brown, Roggieh Saffie, Kay Savage, Duncan Moore, Gregory Gregoriadis, Geoffrey M. Dusheiko – 30 December 2003 – This study investigated the feasibility of using liposomes to increase the hepatic delivery and antiviral efficacy of phosphorothioate antisense oligodeoxynucleotides (PS‐ODN) for the in vivo treatment of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. Ducks infected with duck hepatitis B virus (DHBV) were used as the model.

Daryl T. Lau, David E. Kleiner, Marc G. Ghany, Yoon Park, Peter Schmid, Jay H. Hoofnagle – 30 December 2003 – Sustained responses to interferon‐α occur in 10% to 25% of patients with chronic hepatitis C, but the long‐term outcome is not well defined. We evaluated the long‐term clinical, histological, and virological outcomes of 10 patients with chronic hepatitis C who were treated between 1984 and 1987 with interferon‐α‐2b for 52 ± 6 weeks (total doses of 492 ± 116 MU).

Koji Ishii, Domenico Rosa, Yushiro Watanabe, Tohru Katayama, Hideharu Harada, Colby Wyatt, Kendo Kiyosawa, Hideki Aizaki, Yoshiharu Matsuura, Michael Houghton, Sergio Abrignani, Tatsuo Miyamura – 30 December 2003 – Most cases of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection result in chronic disease; however, a very small fraction of patients naturally clear the virus and resolve chronic hepatitis. In an attempt to correlate immune response with chronic disease resolution, we compared the antibody response in patients with different outcomes of the infection.

Marco Arrese, Michael Trauner, Robert J. Sacchiero, Michael W. Crossman, Benjamin L. Shneider – 30 December 2003 – The regulatory responses of bile acid (BA) transport in the terminal ileum to perturbations in BA homeostasis are complex, and conflicting results have been reported by different investigators. These studies were designed to examine the response of this system to a reduction in ileal bile salt concentrations at both a functional and molecular level.

Thierry Chinet, Laura Fouassier, Nathalie Dray‐Charier, Mama Imam‐Ghali, Hugues Morel, Martine Mergey, Bertrand Dousset, Rolland Parc, Annick Paul, Chantal Housset – 30 December 2003 – Fluid and ion transport across biliary epithelium contributes to bile flow. Alterations of this function may explain hepatobiliary complications in cystic fibrosis (CF). We investigated electrogenic anion transport across intact non‐CF and CF human gallbladder mucosa in Ussing‐type chambers.

Volker Dries, Ingo von Both, Marion Müller, Guido Gerken, Peter Schirmacher, Margarete Odenthal, Ralf Bartenschlager, Uta Drebber, Karl‐Hermann Meyer zum Büschenfelde, Hans Peter Dienes – 30 December 2003 – The diagnosis of hepatitis C is based on serological testing for antibodies against various epitopes of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) and detection of HCV RNA in serum, because anti‐HCV antibodies alone cannot discriminate patients who are infectious from those who have resolved the infection.

Claus Niederau, Stefan Lange, Tobias Heintges, Andreas Erhardt, Marlies Buschkamp, Dietmar Hürter, Marek Nawrocki, Lothar Kruska, Frank Hensel, Wolfgang Petry, Dieter Häussinger – 30 December 2003 – The prognosis of chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is still ill‐defined. The present study prospectively evaluated mortality and complications in a large cohort of patients with chronic hepatitis C. The study included 838 anti‐HCV and HCV‐RNA–positive patients who were followed for 50.2 ± 26.9 months (mean ± SD; range, 6‐122 months) in a prospective protocol.

Naoyuki Kawahara, Mayumi Ono, Ken‐ichi Taguchi, Masahiro Okamoto, Mitsuo Shimada, Kenji Takenaka, Kenshi Hayashi, Dean F. Mosher, Keizo Sugimachi, Masazumi Tsuneyoshi, Michihiko Kuwano – 30 December 2003 – Cholangiocarcinoma (CCC) is relatively hypovascular, in contrast to hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), which is often highly vascular.

Belén del Santo, Raquel Valdés, João Mata, Antonio Felipe, F. Javier Casado, Marçal Pastor‐Anglada – 30 December 2003 – Primary cultures of rat‐liver parenchymal cells show carrier‐mediated nucleoside uptake by a mechanism that mainly involves concentrative, Na+‐dependent transport activity. In contrast, the hepatoma cell line FAO shows high nucleoside transport activity, although it is mostly accounted for by Na+‐independent transport processes. This is associated with a low amount of sodium purine nucleoside transporter (SPNT) mRNA.