Anna Ludovica Fracanzani, Dario Conte, Mirella Fraquelli, Emanuela Taioli, Michela Mattioli, Alessandra Losco, Silvia Fargion – 30 December 2003 – It has been suggested that excess iron may facilitate the occurrence of cancer. Patients with hereditary hemochromatosis (HH) are at high risk of developing liver cancer, and studies of limited series reported a high frequency of nonhepatic cancers.

Arash Grakoui, Holly L. Hanson, Charles M. Rice – 30 December 2003

Eng‐Kiong Teo, George Ostapowicz, Munira Hussain, William M. Lee, Robert J. Fontana, Anna S. F. Lok – 30 December 2003 – Occult hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection has been reported in 30% to 50% of patients with acute liver failure (ALF) in small case series. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of occult HBV infection in a large series of ALF patients in the United States and the prevalence of precore and core promoter variants in patients with ALF caused by hepatitis B.

Junichi Shoda, Koji Oda, Hiroshi Suzuki, Yuichi Sugiyama, Kosei Ito, David E. Cohen, Li Feng, Junichi Kamiya, Yuji Nimura, Hiroshi Miyazaki, Masahito Kano, Yasushi Matsuzaki, Naomi Tanaka – 30 December 2003 – Intrahepatic calculi, highly prevalent in the Far East, including Japan, are characterized clinically by chronic proliferative cholangitis with frequent stone recurrences. Intrahepatic calculi consist of 2 groups, i.e., brown pigment stones, including a high cholesterol content, and cholesterol stones, with the former predominating.

Arndt Vogel, Heike Liermann, Andrea Harms, Christian P. Strassburg, Michael P. Manns, Petra Obermayer‐Straub – 30 December 2003 – The mechanisms driving the immune‐mediated destruction of hepatic tissues in autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) are unknown. Recently the autoimmune regulator (AIRE), a gene associated with the development of the autoimmune polyglandular syndrome type 1 (APS‐1), was cloned. About 15% to 20% of APS‐1 patients develop hepatitis. However, the role of AIRE mutations in AIH, primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC), and primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) is not known.

Chien‐Te K. Tseng, Emil Miskovsky, Michael Houghton, Gary R. Klimpel – 30 December 2003 – The pathogenic mechanisms involved in viral hepatitis are not completely understood. Evidence suggests that the pathology associated with hepatitis C virus (HCV) and hepatitis B virus (HBV) infections are a result of the immune response in the liver to these viruses. The livers of patients with viral hepatitis have been shown to contain elevated numbers of T cells expressing the γ/δ form of the T‐cell receptor for antigen (TCRγδ).

Leonardo Fainboim, Maria Cristina Cañero Velasco, Cintia Y. Marcos, Mirta Ciocca, Adriana Roy, Graciela Theiler, Monica Capucchio, Silvia Nuncifora, Livio Sala, Marta Zelazko – 30 December 2003 – HLA alleles are known to be associated with susceptibility to develop autoimmune hepatitis (AH), and hepatitis A virus (HAV) infection is postulated as a putative trigger for AH. We investigated whether HLA may influence the outcome of the HAV infection by studying 67 children with self‐limited and 39 children with protracted forms of this infection.

Philippe Podevin, Abdelmajid Sabile, Rodrigo Gajardo, Nadira Delhem, Annie Abadie, Pierre‐Yves Lozach, Laura Beretta, Christian Bréchot – 30 December 2003 – The impact of hepatitis C virus NS5A protein mutations on interferon alfa (IFN‐α) signaling pathway, cell proliferation, and viability is an important issue that is still under debate. We have therefore combined transient and stable expression in a human hepatocytic cell line (Huh7) of 3 full‐length NS5A sequences, isolated from patients with or without response to IFN‐α therapy.

Karen L. Lindsay, Christian Trepo, Tobias Heintges, Mitchell L. Shiffman, Stuart C. Gordon, John C. Hoefs, Eugene R. Schiff, Zachary D. Goodman, Mark Laughlin, Ruji Yao, Janice K. Albrecht – 30 December 2003 – This international, randomized, active‐controlled, parallel‐group, double‐blind dose‐finding study compared peginterferon alfa‐2b (PegIntron™) to interferon alfa‐2b for the initial treatment of compensated chronic hepatitis C.

Giovanni Rolla, Luisa Brussino, Luca Dutto, Antonio Ottobrelli, Caterina Bucca – 30 December 2003 – Severe hypoxemia may occur in patients with liver disease as a result of abnormal intrapulmonary vasodilatations (hepatopulmonary syndrome, HPS). Liver transplantation (LT) is the only effective treatment of HPS, with a quite variable delay of improvement of oxygenation. Smoking, by decreasing respiratory nitric oxide (NO), apparently contributed to improved oxygenation in a 44‐year‐old man with alcohol‐induced cirrhosis, complicated by HPS, who underwent LT.