Flavia Bortolotti, Raffaella Giacchino, Pietro Vajro, Cristiana Barbera, Carlo Crivellaro, Alfredo Alberti, Gabriella Nebbia, Lucia Zancan, Lorena de Moliner, Adalberto Bertolini, Fiorella Balli, Francesco Callea – 1 December 1995 – The efficacy of recombinant interferon‐alfa therapy in children with chronic hepatitis C has been evaluated in a randomized, controlled pilot study including 27 patients, aged 2 to 14 years, without underlying systemic diseases.

Jaw‐Ching Wu, Chuan‐Mu Chen, I‐Jane Sheen, Shou‐Dong Lee, Huey‐Miin Tzeng, Kong‐Bung Choo – 1 December 1995 – To study sexual transmission of hepatitis D virus (HDV), 52 spouses of 56 index patients were observed and HDV genomes from antibody to HDV (anti‐HDV)‐positive couples were sequenced. Of the spouses, 11 (21%) were serum HBsAg positive, 3 (27%) of whom were also anti‐HDV positive. The HDV sequences between spouses were found to be nearly identical (98% to 98.8%) in the region analyzed (nt 911 to nt 1260). Only one couple showed an identity >90% with the genotype I HDV strains.

Cesar Roncero, Isabel Fabregat, Manuel Benito – 1 December 1995 – Fetal rat hepatocytes incubated in the absence of hormonal signals, or under proliferative (presence of epidermal growth factor [EGF]) or differentiative (presence of dexamethasone) culture conditions, showed responsiveness to interleukin‐6 (IL‐6). Northern blotting analysis for some typical acute phase genes such as haptoglobin and other proteins not previously identified as acute‐phase reactants, such as α‐fetoprotein, β2‐microglobulin, and fibronectin, showed a positive modulation by IL‐6, in a dose‐dependent manner.

Ikuo Shoji, Tetsuro Suzuki, Shinya Chieda, Mitsuru Sato, Takashi Harada, Tsutomu Chiba, Yoshiharu Matsuura, Tatsuo Miyamura – 1 December 1995 – The serine proteinase of hepatitis C virus (HCV) nonstructural protein NS3 was efficiently expressed in an active form as a fused protein with oligohistidine in Escherichia coli. The recombinant fusion protein was purified to near homogeneity by affinity chromatography on a metal chelation column. Trans‐cleavage activity of this protein was investigated by using the substrate NS5 protein expressed in insect cells.

Petra E. Steindl, Jeanne Gottstein, Andres T. Blei – 1 December 1995 – A recent study suggested that female rats are less affected by a portacaval anastomosis (PCA) than their male counterparts, as measured by body weight and changes in locomotor activity. In this study, we evaluated the entrainment of locomotor activity to the light/dark (LD) cycle, a consistent abnormality in the portacaval shunted rat. The degree of entrainment was measured in male and female rats before and after PCA or sham operation. All four groups of animals showed strong entrainment to an LD cycle before surgery.

Koichiro Yamakado, Kan Takeda, Yoshiya Nishide, Jugangu Jin, Kaname Matsumura, Atsuhiro Nakatsuka, Tadanori Hirano, Noriyuki Kato, Tsuyoshi Nakagawa – 1 December 1995 – Portal vein embolization (PVE) is expected to have an adjuvant effect on the treatment of human liver tumors with transcatheter hepatic arterial embolization (TAE). In this experimental study, PVE was tried using two kinds of embolic materials, steel coils (coils) and absolute ethanol (ethanol). The aim of this article is to compare the effectiveness between the two methods.

Raymond S. Koff – 1 December 1995

Daniel Cherqui, Alain Rahmouni, Frédéric Charlotte, Hatem Boulahdour, Michel Meignan, Pierre‐Louis Fagniez, Elie‐Serge Zafrani, Didier Mathieu, Daniel Dhumeaux, Jean‐Michel Métreau – 1 December 1995 – Preoperative distinction between focal nodular hyperplasia (FNH) that should be managed conservatively and hepatocellular adenoma (HA) that should be resected remains difficult. The result is controversial management of these patients.

Hideya Noguchi, Kenji Hirai, Yoshinori Aoki, Kenji Sakata, Kyuichi Tanikawa – 1 December 1995 – We performed a partial splenic arterial embolization in 22 patients with cirrhosis associated with thrombocy‐topenia and then evaluated the changes in platelet kinetics after undergoing the procedure using 111In‐tropolone–labeled platelets. The controls consisted of eight chronic hepatitis patients who showed a normal platelet count and normal spleen size. The mean splenic infarction ratio after the procedure was 54.9%.

Naokatu Arakaki, Shuichi Kawakami, Osamu Nakamura, Tomokazu Ohnishi, Hiroomi Miyazaki, Takehisa Ishii, Hirohito Tsubouchi, Yasushi Daikuhara – 1 December 1995 – Human hepatocyte growth factor (hHGF), which is now known to be the same protein as the scatter factor and the tumor cytotoxic factor, is a heterodimeric protein with one heavy chain and one light chain linked together by a disulfide bond, and is thought to be involved in liver regeneration.