Massimo Colombo, Giorgio Annoni, Maria Francesca Donato, Dario Conte, Dino Martines, Maria Grazia Zaramella, Paolo A. Bianchi, Alberto Piperno, Claudio Tiribelli – 1 May 1985 – To assess the value of type III procollagen peptide (sPIIIP) as a marker of hepatic fibrosis, sera from 73 patients with alcohol‐related liver disease and 30 patients with idiopathic hemochromatosis (IHC) were studied by a specific radioimmunoassay. sPIIIP was increased in 87% of 30 patients with cirrhosis, in 16% of 32 with steatofibrosis but in none of 11 with steatosis.

Kazuhide Yamamoto, Igor Sherman, M. James Phillips, Murray M. Fisher – 1 May 1985 – The arterial terminations were studied by scanning electron microscopy of microvascular casts in rat, hamster and human livers. Important species differences were observed. In the rat, frequent anastomoses between the terminal hepatic arterioles and portal venules were observed, whereas a few arterioles terminated directly into sinusoids. On the contrary, no arterioportal venous anastomoses were demonstrated in the hamster and human livers.

Polly Feigl – 1 March 1985

Dale A. Schoeller, Alvin N. Kotake, George H. Lambert, Patricia S. Krager, Alfred L. Baker – 1 March 1985 – The phenacetin breath test (PBT) has been proposed as an alternative to the aminopyrine breath test (ABT) for the assessment of hepatic function. To investigate the clinical utility of the PBT, we compared the PBT with the ABT in 9 healthy subjects and 18 patients with biopsy‐proven liver disease.

Kelvin R. Palmer, William J. Jenkins – 1 March 1985 – Hepatic aldehyde dehydrogenase activity is depressed in alcoholic liver disease and may account for the observation that alcoholics develop high blood acetaldehyde concentrations following ethanol. To determine whether this is a specific defect in alcoholics, aldehyde dehydrogenase was studied in liver tissue obtained from three groups of subjects.

Hans K. Kley, Wolfgang Stremmel, Claus Niederau, Rainer Hehrmann, Omar Shams, Georg Strohmeyer, Hans L. Krüskemper – 1 March 1985 – Gonadal function in idiopathic hemochromatosis (IHC) was evaluated by comparing clinical features and levels of sex hormones in 10 male patients with IHC (cirrhosis, 4; fibrosis, 6), 6 male patients with alcoholic cirrhosis (AC) and 10 healthy, age‐matched controls. Impotence was present in 9 IHC and all AC patients and was associated with decreased plasma testosterone levels.

David L. Williams, Edward R. Sherwood, Rose B. McNamee, Ernest L. Jones, Nicholas R. Di Luzio – 1 March 1985 – Glucan, a particulate β‐1,3‐polyglucose immunomodulator, was evaluated for its ability to modify hepatic metastases and survival in mice with reticulum cell sarcoma. Sarcoma M5076 cells were injected subcutaneously (1 × 105 cells) into syngeneic C57BL/6J male mice. On Day 20, histopathological studies indicated the presence of hepatic micrometastases. At this time, glucan (0.45 mg per mouse) or dextrose was administered intravenously.

Stephen Holt, John Tulip, Douglas Hamilton, Judith Cummins, Anthony Fields, Catherine Dick – 1 March 1985 – The tumoricidal effect of the activation of hematoporphyrin derivative (HpD), by an argon‐ion‐dye‐laser (wavelength 630 nm), was investigated in the Buffalo rat bearing subcutaneous implants of the Morris 7777 hepatoma. Tumor growth was monitored by measuring the tumor volume with constant force callipers. In control animals and those that were pretreated with HpD alone (10 or 20 mg per kg by i.p.

S. A. Jenkins, J. N. Baxter, W. Corbett, P. Devitt, J. Ware, R. Shields, D. Kravetz, J. Terés, J. Bosch, J. Bruix, J. Rodés – 1 March 1985

A. D'arienzo, D. Mattera, G. Ambrogio, L. Duranti, L. Zeuli, G. Mazzacca, Richard Fuller, Charles L. Hoppel – 1 March 1985