Peter V. Tishler – 1 January 1988 – Günther's disease, or congenital erythropoietic porphyria, is a rare autosomal recessive disorder of heme biosynthesis characteristically associated with diminished uroporphyrinogen III cosynthetase activity. Disfiguring photomutilation starts in childhood. Avoidance of sunlight has been the only sure way to prevent or retard photosensitivity. The treatments that have been tried have had limited success. A partial benefit after splenectomy has been reported, but there is little evidence of specific, long‐term improvement.

J. Lacey Smith, David Y. Graham – 1 January 1988 – Variation in time of patient admission to studies of prognosis after variceal hemorrhage has been proposed as a major factor in the wide range of reported results. A study of 144 unselected subjects with a low initial mortality (3% at two days) suggests that the effect has been overemphasized and studies in which time of entry is later than the date of bleeding may be usefully compared. Reanalysis of previous work suggests that even in populations with a high initial mortality limited comparisons between studies can still be usefully made.

1 January 1988

M. Eric Gershwin, Ross L. Coppel, Ian R. Mackay – 1 January 1988

Mario Chojkier, David A. Brenner – 1 January 1988

The Italian Multicenter Project for Propranolol in Prevention of Bleeding – 1 January 1988 – To assess if propranolol prevents the first bleeding in cirrhosis, we randomly assigned 174 patients with large varices to either propranolol in doses reducing the resting heart rate by 25% (85 patients) or to a placebo (oral vitamin K, 89 patients). Sixty‐nine patients had alcoholic cirrhosis, 24 posthepatitic cirrhosis and 81 cryp‐togenic cirrhosis.

Francesco Salerno, Salvatore Badalamenti, Pierluigi Incerti, Loredana Capozza, Laura Mainardi – 1 January 1988 – Sodium retention in liver cirrhosis is thought to be due to, among other things, lack of a natriuretic factor or failure to respond to one. α‐Human‐atrial natriuretic peptide is a peptide that accounts partly or entirely for the circulating natriuretic activity in man.

Gerald Y. Minuk, Keith L. Maccannell – 1 January 1988 – Systolic and diastolic blood pressures were recorded in 176 ambulant patients with chronic liver disease, including 36 patients with compensated cirrhosis (Group I), 119 patients with noncirrhotic chronic liver disease (Group II) and 21 patients with benign structural or functional liver disease (Group III).

Anders Nyberg, Berit Berne, Hans Nordlinder, Christer Busch, Ulf Eriksson, Lars Lööf, Anders Vahlquist – 1 January 1988 – In 44 patients with primary biliary cirrhosis serum levels of vitamin A, retinol‐binding protein and transthyretin (prealbumin) were found to be significantly lower than in 25 sex‐ and age‐matched controls. Liver biopsies were available for chemical analyses in 28 of the patients.

Peter B. Cotton – 1 January 1988 – One hundred and twenty patients with known common bile duct stones were entered into a prospective randomised study of preoperative endoscopic sphincterotomy and stone clearance (group 1) versus surgery alone (group 2). Five patients were incorrectly entered; the 55 patients randomised to group 1 and the 60 randomised to group 2 were well matched with respect to clinical features and biochemical and medical risk factors.