Irmin Sternlieb – 1 July 1988 – Experience with liver transplantation for patients with Wilson's disease who have major neurological impairment is limited, and this report describes the results obtained in two such patients. The first was a 30‐year‐old man with a 14‐month history of hepatic and neurological impairment. In spite of treatment with d‐penicillamine, he developed increasing dysarthria, dysphagia, akinesia and rigidity of all four limbs, and required continuous nursing care.

D. W. Bullimore – 1 July 1988

1 July 1988

Anthony J. Stellon, John J. Keating, Philip J. Johnson, Ian G. McFarlane, Roger Williams – 1 July 1988 – Forty‐seven patients with autoimmune chronic active hepatitis in remission on azathioprine and/or prednisolone were entered into a randomized controlled trial to assess the value of azathioprine alone in maintenance of remission.

Bernard H. Davis, Angelina Vucic – 1 July 1988 – Hepatic sinusoidal fat‐storing Ito cells are felt to represent the primary storage site for hepatic vitamin A and may be important collagen‐producing effector cells during hepatic fibrogenesis. The cirrhotic liver generally has a decreased vitamin A content with increased numbers of “transitional” myofibroblasts adjacent to developing fibrous bands. It has been suggested that Ito cells “transform” into these myofibroblasts.

Sophie Roy, Gilles Pomier‐Layrargues, Roger F. Butterworth, P.‐Michel Huet – 1 July 1988 – It has been suggested, from studies of a rabbit model of fulminant hepatic failure, that hepatic encephalopathy might be related to an increase in brain γ‐aminobutyric acid uptake through a more permeable blood‐brain barrier, leading to an overactivity of brain γ‐aminobutyric acid‐mediated inhibitory neurotrans‐mission.

Eduard F. Stange, Jürgen Scheibner, Christine Lutz, Hans Ditschuneit – 1 July 1988 – The regulation of bile acid synthesis was studied (i) in intact or colectomized rats receiving cholate or taurocholate as a dietary supplement and (ii) in experiments using chow‐fed animals with a graded intravenous or intraduodenal taurocholate infusion. After the 2‐week diet period a bile fistula was established and rates of taurocholate, tauromuricholate and taurochenodeoxy‐cholate secretion were quantitated by high‐performance liquid chromatography.

Charles L. Mendenhall – 1 July 1988

Hey‐Chi Hsu, Ming‐Yang Lai, Ih‐Jen Su, Ding‐Shinn Chen, Mei‐Hwei Chang, Pei‐Ming Yang, Chieng‐Yen Wu, Hong‐Chung Hsieh – 1 July 1988 – To elucidate the biologic significance of hepatocyte HBsAg, its expression patterns were correlated with virus replication and liver pathology in 578 liver biopsies taken from chronic HBsAg carriers aged 1 to 80 years. Five major patterns of hepatocyte HBsAg were identified: homogeneous [intense and discrete, (Pattern A), faint and discrete, (Pattern B) and faint and grouped (Pattern C)]; globular or spotty (Pattern D), and marginal (Pattern E).

Jerome B. Zeldis, Francis A. Farraye, Howard N. Steinberg – 1 July 1988 – Exposure of human bone marrow mononuclear cells to hepatitis B virus results in the suppression of the in vitro growth of several hematopoietic progenitor cells. We studied the degree of inhibition of erythroid progenitor cells that results as a function of the time of exposure of mononuclear cells to hepatitis B virus and the ratio of virus to mononuclear cells, the multiplicity of infection.