M Van de Castelle, G Van Roey, F Nevens, J Fevery – 1 December 1996 – The optimal dose of spironolactone to reduce portal vein pressure, alone or in combination with isosorbide‐5‐mononitrate (IsMn), has not been identified. We studied the effects of 8 days oral treatment with spironolactone, IsMn or both on portal pressure, plasma volume and renal sodium handling in rats with partial portal vein ligation. At daily doses of 0.33; 0.50; 1, and 1.50 mg/kg, spironolactone reduced portal pressure (all P < .05) as compared with placebo.

M L Shiffman – 1 December 1996

K G Benner – 1 December 1996

1 December 1996

T Dorner, E Feist, C Held, K Conrad, G R Burmester, F Hiepe – 1 December 1996 – Antibodies against the 52‐kd Ro(SS‐A) protein are significantly associated with the primary Sjogren's syndrome (pSS). A small proportion of patients suffering from primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) with secondary Sjogren's syndrome (PBC/SS) who are serologically characterized by antimitochondrial type 2 antibodies also express anti‐52‐kd Ro(SS‐A) antibodies.

J Salo, W Jimenez, M Kuhn, A Gines, P Gines, G Fernandez‐Esparrach, P Angeli, J Claria, R Bataller, V Arroyo, W Forssmann, J Rodes – 1 December 1996 – Cirrhotic patients with ascites show increased plasma levels of natriuretic peptides from cardiac origin (i.e., atrial natriuretic peptide [ANP] and brain natriuretic peptide [BNP]). Urodilatin is a unique member of the natriuretic peptide family because it is exclusively synthesized in the kidney acting on a paracrine fashion in the regulation of sodium excretion.

D Luo, K Vanderkerken, L Bouwens, P J Kuppen, M Baekeland, C Seynaeve, E Wisse – 1 December 1996 – Previous studies showed that blood large granular lymphocytes (LGL), which possess natural killer (NK) activity, develop within rat liver sinusoids into high‐density (HD) and subsequently into low‐density (LD) pit cells which show an increasing level and spectrum of tumor cytotoxicity. In this study, we investigated the role of adhesion molecules, such as CD2, CD11a, CD18, and CD54 in the recruitment of pit cells to the liver.

W B Coleman, S C Presnell – 1 December 1996

S Zeuzem, A Franke, J Lee, G Herrmann, B Rüster, W K Roth – 1 November 1996 – Nucleotide sequence analysis of hepatitis C virus (HCV) strains showed substantial variability leading to a classification into several genotypes and subtypes. The data correlating HCV genotypes and subtypes with hepatitis C viremia levels, demographic characteristics of patients (age, mode of transmission, duration of infection), and severity of liver disease are conflicting.

P Scaglioni, M Melegari, M Takahashi, J R Chowdhury, J Wands – 1 November 1996 – Chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a major cause of acute and chronic liver diseases. We have recently described HBV and woodchuck hepatitis virus (WHV) dominant negative (DN) core mutants that were capable of inhibiting wild‐type viral replication by 95%.