Giulio Diodati, Paola Bonetti, Franco Noventa, Carla Casarin, Massimo Rugge, Sergio Scaccabarozzi, Alessandro Tagger, Lucio Pollice, Federico Tremolada, Cristina Davite, Giuseppe Realdi, Arturo Ruol – 1 January 1994 – Sixty consecutive patients with chronic hepatitis C were included in a randomized controlled trial of recombinant human interferon‐α2a vs. no treatment. Treated patients received tapering doses of interferon thrice weekly for 1 yr.

Koteswara R. Chintalacharuvu, Anthony S. Tavill, Loizos N. Louis, Jean‐Pierre Vaerman, Michael E. Lamm, Charlotte S. Kaetzel – 1 January 1994 – The polymeric immunoglobulin receptor on rat hepatocytes binds dimeric IgA on the sinusoidal surface and mediates its transport to the canaliculus, where the complex of dimeric IgA and secretory component, the cleaved extracellular domain of polymeric immunoglobulin receptor, is secreted into bile.

Francis Schneider, Philippe Lutun, Karim Boudjema, Philippe Wolf, Jean‐Daniel Tempé – 1 January 1994 – Nitric oxide and atrial natriuretic peptides are the main activators of guanylyl cyclases, which transform ITP into cyclic GMP and thereby contribute to the decrease of vascular tone.

Anton Chekhov, Michael R. Lucey – 1 January 1994

1 January 1994

Geoffrey Dusheiko, Hemda Schmilovitz‐Weiss, David Brown, Fiona McOmish, Pong‐Lee Yap, Sheila Sherlock, Neil McIntyre, Peter Simmonds – 1 January 1994 – Because of the nucleotide sequence diversity of different isolates of hepatitis C virus, it has become important to clarify whether distinct genotypes of hepatitis C virus vary with respect to pathogenicity, infectivity, response to antiviral therapy and geographic clustering.

David H. van Thiel, Stefano Fagiuoli, Harlan I. Wright, Mei‐Chen Chien, Judith S. Gavaler – 1 January 1994 – Chronic hepatic encephalopathy is highly responsive to changes in diet, to antibiotic therapy and to ingestion of nondigestible disaccharides. The precise pathophysiology of chronic hepatic encephalopathy in individual cases is highly variable, although ammonia toxicity and production of neurotransmitterlike substances in the gut have been proposed to contribute to the overall syndrome of chronic hepatic encephalopathy.

Pietro Lampertico, Mariagrazia Rumi, Raffaella Romeo, Antonio Craxi, Roberta Soffredini, Daniela Biassoni, Massimo Colombo – 1 January 1994 – To assess whether interferon‐α might prevent non‐A, non‐B hepatitis from becoming chronic, 45 consecutive patients with transfusion‐associated hepatitis were enrolled in a randomized clinical trial. Thirty‐eight patients had hepatitis C virus infection, and 7 had non‐A, non‐B, non‐C hepatitis. Twenty‐six patients (22 with HCV) were given 3 MU of recombinant interferon‐α2b three times a week for 12 wk, whereas 19 (16 with HCV) were not.

Julián Panés, Josep M. Piqué, Josep M. Bordas, Josep Llach, Jaime Bosch, Josep Terés, Juan Rodés – 1 January 1994 – Gastric mucosal perfusion is increased in portalhypertensive gastropathy, and this may contribute to gastric bleeding from these lesions. Therefore drugs reducing gastric mucosal perfusion may be beneficial in the treatment of overt bleeding from portal‐hypertensive gastropathy.

Loreto Boix, Jose Luis Rosa, Francesc Ventura, Antoni Castells, Jordi Bruix, Joan Rodés, Ramon Bartrons – 1 January 1994 – This study was aimed at assessing the presence of c‐met overexpression in human hepatocellular carcinoma and at determining whether this feature is associated with a definite clinical or pathological characteristic. Expression of c‐met was determined by Northern‐blot hybridization of a specific probe (human met proto‐oncogene) in 18 tumoral and nontumoral liver samples obtained in 18 cirrhotic patients with hepatocellular carcinoma submitted to surgical treatment.