Hiroko Oka, Akihiro Tamori, Tetsuo Kuroki, Kenzo Kobayashi, Sukeo Yamamoto – 1 January 1994 – The usefulness of measurements of serum α‐fetoprotein elevation for diagnosis of the development of hepatocellular carcinoma was evaluated by a prospective study of 260 patients with cirrhosis. Hepatocellular carcinoma was found in 55 patients during the 5‐yr follow‐up, excluding 7 found to have hepatocellular carcinoma in the first 6 mo.

Paolo Angeli, Manuela Dalla Pria, Erica de Bei, Grazia Albino, Lorenza Caregaro, Carlo Merkel, Giulio Ceolotto, Angelo Gatta – 1 January 1994 – Although some clinical studies seem to prove the efficacy of nonantialdosteronic potassium‐sparing diuretics in the treatment of ascites, no controlled study has compared the efficacy of these drugs with that of antialdosteronic diuretics. Forty nonazotemic cirrhotic patients were randomized to receive amiloride (group A, n = 20) or potassium canrenoate (group B, n = 20).

Raymond S. Koff – 1 January 1994

Antonio Francavilla, Qihua Zeng, Lorenzo Polimeno, Brian I. Carr, Dantong Sun, Kendrick A. Porter, David H. van Thiel, Thomas E. Starzl – 1 January 1994 – Orthotopic liver transplantation was performed in 60 recipient rats weighing 200 to 250 gm. Sixty rats of the same strain were used as liver donors, 30 weighing 100 to 140 gm (small for size) and the other 30 weighing 200 to 250 gm (same size).

Nan Ni, James D. Yager – 1 January 1994 – Ethinyl estradiol is a weak complete carcinogen and potent tumor promoter. In vivo, ethinyl estradiol causes a rapid but transient increase in liver growth, whereas in cultured female hepatocytes it enhances DNA synthesis induced by epidermal growth factor and is thus classified as a comitogen.

Shushma Aggarwal, David Kramer, Howard Yonas, Walter Obrist, Yoogoo Kang, Maureen Martin, Raymond Policare – 1 January 1994 – The purpose of this retrospective study was to determine cerebral hemodynamic and metabolic changes in comatose patients with fulminant hepatic failure. Computerized tomography of the brain and cerebral blood flow measurements by the xenoncomputerized tomography scan or intravenous xenon‐133 methods were obtained in 33 patients with fulminant hepatic failure.

Ulrich Lauer, Ludwig Weiß, Martin Lipp, Peter Hans Hofschneider, Alexander S. Kekulé – 1 January 1994 – Integrated hepatitis B virus DNA cloned from hepatitis B virus‐associated hepatocellular carcinoma frequently contains 3′‐truncated middle surface genes (preS2/St), which were recently found to have a transcriptional transactivator function. Because preS2/St, among others, is able to transactivate the promoters of the cellular oncogenes c‐myc and c‐fos, it has been speculated that integrated preS2/St genes might contribute to hepatitis B virus‐associated liver carcinogenesis.

1 January 1994

Robert K. Ockner – 1 December 1993

Nelson Fausto – 1 December 1993 – In previous studies hepatocytes undergoing cell death by apoptosis but not normal hepatocytes in rat liver showed immunostaining for transforming growth factor β1 (TGF‐β1). Staining was much stronger with antibodies recognizing the pro‐region of TGF‐β1 than the mature peptide itself. Therefore we investigated the ability of both forms of TGF‐β1 to induce apoptosis in primary cultures of rat hepatocytes. Mature TGF‐β1 induced rounding up of the cells and fragmentation into multiple vesicles.