Jens H. Henriksen – 1 November 1989 – Methionine enkephalin and catecholamines were measured in carefully collected plasma samples from 25 patients with cirrhosis and ascites, and 25 with cirrhosis without ascites, 15 disease and 15 healthy controls. Methionine enkephalin was invariably raised in the ascites group, the median value being 4.6–6.9 times that of the other three groups. Similarly, in the ascites group, median noradrenaline was increased 2.5–4.2 and median adrenaline 1.8–2.5 times that of the other groups.

Timothy J. Hearn, Anton E. Coleman, James C. K. Lai, Owen W. Griffith, Arthur J. L. Cooper – 1 November 1989 – L‐Carnitine (16 mmoles per kg, injected intraperitoneally) is reported to protect mice against subsequent injection of ammonium acetate given at the unprotected LD100. The present studies in rats show a variable protective effect of L‐carnitine (16 mmoles per kg) administered 1 hr prior to an LD100 dose of ammonium acetate. Survival ranged from 100% to 35%.

Kunio Okuda, Hector Orozco, Guadalupe Garcia‐Tsao, Takeshi Takahashi – 1 November 1989

N. C. Nayak – 1 November 1989

Delawir Kahn, Qihua Zeng, Leonard Makowka, Noriko Murase, Yasuaki Nakajima, Patricia K. Eagon, Antonio Francavilla, Thomas E. Starzl, David H. van Thiel – 1 November 1989 – Mammalian liver is known to contain cytosolic receptors for both estrogens and androgens. Furthermore, certain mammalian hepatic functions are known to display a sexual dimorphism. However, in clinical liver transplantation, the sex of the donor is not taken into consideration in selection of the donor.

Patrice A. Michaletz, Ludèk Cap, Elliot Alpert, Bernhard H. Lauterburg – 1 November 1989 – A breath test to assess hepatic mitochondrial function in vivo was evaluated in rats. Following the i.p. administration of [1‐14C]‐α‐ketoisocaproic acid, 14CO2 exhalation reached a peak within 10 to 20 min and then declined exponentially, with a half‐life of 14.3 min. Control animals exhaled 38.6% of the administered radioactivity within 1 hr.

Patricia M. Grambsch, E. Rolland Dickson, Marshall Kaplan, Gene Lesage, Thomas R. Fleming, Alice L. Langworthy – 1 November 1989 – The generalizability of the Mayo model for predicting survival in individual primary biliary cirrhosis patients without liver transplantation was tested and confirmed. The model was applied to a data base of patients from the New England Medical Center Hospitals (n = 141) and the Scott and White Clinic (n = 35) and found to predict their survival accurately.

Joseph Klain, Drora Fraser, Jed Goldstein, Jochanan Peiser, Eliezer Avinoah, Amnon Ovnat, Ilan Charuzi – 1 November 1989 – A prospective study was undertaken in order to investigate the association between clinical and biochemical parameters and the histopathological findings in liver biopsies in the morbidly obese. Wedge liver biopsy specimens were taken at the beginning of the surgical procedure from 100 consecutive morbidly obese patients undergoing Roux‐en‐Y gastric bypass.

1 October 1989

Linda Rabeneck – 1 October 1989 – Ninety‐seven patients with recent or active var‐iceal bleeding were randomly assigned to oral pro‐pranolol, endoscopic sclerotherapy plus oral pro‐pranolol, or transhepatic sclerotherapy plus oral propranolol. The effects of treatment on the number of units transfused, rebleeding of any magnitude, major rebleeding, and death were assessed in these patients, 82% of whom were alcoholic and 81% Child's Class C.