Ke‐Qin Hu, Chang‐Hong Yu, Sunny Lee, Federico G. Villamil, John M. Vierling – 1 April 1995 – Hepatitis C virus (HCV) RNA polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is widely used for diagnosis of HCV infection and evaluation of therapy. The sensitive hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA PCR is often reserved for detection of quantities of HBV DNA that are insufficient for hybridization. Application of both PCR techniques is limited by their labor‐intensity, potential for contamination, and substantial time required for analysis.

Sun‐Lung Tsai, Yun‐Fan Liaw, Chau‐Ting Yeh, Chia‐Ming Chu, George C. Kuo – 1 April 1995 – Several lines of evidence have suggested that immune mechanisms are involved in the pathogenesis of hepatitis B virus (HBV)— and hepatitis C virus (HCV)‐related hepatitis. Study of patients with dual HBV and HCV infection raises the question of which is etiologically more relevant in determining the liver cell damage.

James A. Underhill, Peter T. Donaldson, Derek G. Doherty, Koji Manabe, Roger Williams – 1 April 1995 – In recent years there has been an increasing interest in the link between susceptibility to autoimmune liver disease and genes of the HLA system, although the role of the DPB1 locus in British patients has only been investigated in autoimmune hepatitis.

François Durand, Jacques Bernuau, Dominique Pessayre, Didier Samuel, Jacques Belaiche, Claude Degott, Henri Bismuth, Jacques Belghiti, Serge Erlinger, Bernard Rueff, Jean Pierre Benhamou – 1 April 1995 – Isoniazid and pyrazinamide are well‐known hepatotoxic drugs, often used in combination. The aim of this study was to assess the prognostic influence of pyrazinamide on the outcome of fulminant or subfulminant liver failure caused by antituberculous therapy. Eighteen patients with fulminant or subfulminant liver failure due to antituberculous therapy were studied.

John Devlin, Julia Wendon, Nigel Heaton, Kai‐Chah Tan, Roger Williams – 1 April 1995 – Emergency transplantation for acute liver failure has a significantly inferior outcome than transplantations performed for elective indications. The severity of the pretransplantation clinical illness in this group will contribute to the reduced patient survival.

Koichi Tsuneyama, Judy van de Water, Patrick S. C. Leung, Sanghoon Cha, Yasuni Nakanuma, Marshall Kaplan, Ronald de Lellis, Ross Coppel, Aftab Ansari, M. Eric Gershwin – 1 April 1995 – Primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) is a chronic autoimmune liver disease characterized histologically by non‐suppurative destructive cholangitis. Sera from patients with PBC react with a series of intramitochondrial enzymes with the immunodominant response directed against the E2 component of the pyruvate dehydrogenase complex (PDC‐E2).

Dagny Ståhlberg, Eva Reihnér, Mats Rudling, Lars Berglund, Kurt Einarsson, Bo Angelin – 1 April 1995 – Bezafibrate is a hypolipidemic fibric acid derivative known to induce cholesterol supersaturation of bile. To characterize its effects on hepatic cholesterol metabolism, 31 normolipidemic, normal‐weight patients with gallstones undergoing cholecystectomy were studied. Eleven patients (5 men) were randomized to treatment with bezafibrate, 200 mg three times daily for 4 weeks before operation; the remaining 20 patients (5 men) served as nontreatment controls.

Toshirou Nishida, Mingxin Che, Zenaida Gatmaitan, Irwin M. Arias – 1 April 1995 – The adenosine triphosphate (ATP)‐dependent transport system is a major determinant of canalicular bile acid secretion. The system transports bile acids and neither organic cations nor non—bile acid organic anions, such as glucuronides or glutathione adducts. To define the structural specificity of the ATP‐dependent system, the authors examined the ability of various bile acids to inhibit ATP‐dependent taurocholate transport by rat liver canalicular membrane vesicles.

Martin Hertl, P. Robert C. Harvey, Paul E. Swanson, Delin D. West, Todd K. Howard, Surendra Shenoy, Steven M. Strasberg – 1 April 1995 – Preservation injury to bile ducts is a serious problem in liver transplantation, especially when preservation exceeds 12 hours. The authors hypothesized that the injury was caused by contact of bile ducts with bile salts during cold preservation and might be preventable by infusion of more hydrophilic bile salts.

Pierre Moffatt, Gabriel L. Plaa, Francine Denizeau – 1 April 1995 – Metallothionein (MT) is a small cysteine‐rich protein thought to be mainly involved in metal regulation and detoxification. The implication of MT in cell growth and differentiation has also been suggested. This latter hypothesis was further investigated in adult rat hepatocytes induced to proliferate by epidermal growth factor (EGF). Exposure of hepatocytes to EGF resulted in significant increases (≈twofold) in MT protein and MT‐1 messenger RNA (mRNA) levels, which were maximal after 48 hours.