Luke F. Hourigan, Graeme A. Macdonald, David Purdie, Vicki H. Whitehall, Claudia Shorthouse, Andrew Clouston, Elizabeth E. Powell – 30 December 2003 – Steatosis is a frequent histological finding in chronic hepatitis C infection; however, the pathophysiology of steatosis and its role in disease progression have not been established. We studied 148 consecutive patients with untreated chronic hepatitis C to assess the effect of body mass index, diabetes mellitus, alcohol consumption, hepatic iron content, and viral load on steatosis and hepatic fibrosis.

30 December 2003

Drazen B. Zimonjic, Catherine L. Keck, Snorri S. Thorgeirsson, Nicholas C. Popescu – 30 December 2003 – To search for recurrent and specific genomic alterations in human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), we examined 18 cell lines by comparative genomic hybridization (CGH), a molecular cytogenetic approach that allows positional identification of gains and losses of DNA sequences of the entire tumor genome.

Hiroshi Imamura, Ryo Shimada, Mitsuru Kubota, Yutaka Matsuyama, Ataru Nakayama, Shin‐ichi Miyagawa, Masatoshi Makuuchi, Seiji Kawasaki – 30 December 2003 – Preoperative portal vein embolization (PVE) was performed in 84 patients before extensive liver resection for various diseases. By the criteria of liver volumetric determination, some patients were candidates for PVE, whereas others were not, even though the same surgical procedure, such as extended right lobectomy (ERL), was scheduled.

Manuel Pérez‐Ruiz, Josefa Ros, Manuel Morales‐Ruiz, Miguel Navasa, Jordi Colmenero, Luis Ruiz‐del‐Arbol, Pilar Cejudo, Joan Clària, Francisca Rivera, Vicente Arroyo, Juan Rodés, Wladimiro Jiménez – 30 December 2003 – Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is an angiogenic peptide with vascular permeability and relaxing properties. This study assessed whether peritoneal macrophages of cirrhotic patients can be up‐regulated to produce VEGF under proper stimulatory conditions. Macrophages were isolated from ascites.

Olavo B. Amaral, João Quevedo, Roger Walz, Flávio Kapczinski – 30 December 2003

Lazar T. Sumanovski, Edouard Battegay, Michael Stumm, Maaike van der Kooij, Cornel C. Sieber – 30 December 2003 – Systemic and especially splanchnic arterial vasodilation accompany chronic portal hypertension. Different soluble mediators causing this vasodilation have been proposed, the strongest evidence being for nitric oxide (NO). No data exist if structural vascular changes may partly account for this vasodilatory state.

Kenji Ikeda, Satoshi Saitoh, Yasuji Arase, Kazuaki Chayama, Yoshiyuki Suzuki, Masahiro Kobayashi, Akihito Tsubota, Mizuho Kobayashi, Ikuo Nakamura, Naoya Murashima, Hiromitsu Kumada, Masahiro Kawanishi – 30 December 2003 – The activity of interferon (IFN) is not elucidated from the viewpoint of cancer prevention in chronic hepatitis C patients en masse. The hepatocellular carcinogenesis rate was analyzed statistically in 1,643 patients with chronic hepatitis C: 1,191 patients with IFN therapy and 452 without IFN therapy.

Luc Barraud, Sylviane Guerret, Michele Chevallier, Christelle Borel, Catherine Jamard, Christian Trepo, Christopher P. Wild, Lucyna Cova – 30 December 2003 – Epidemiological studies have suggested synergistic interactions between chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection and aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) exposure in the etiology of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), although the molecular mechanisms of their interactions are still not understood.

Arthur J. McCullough, Yngve Falck‐Ytter – 30 December 2003