Harry B. Greenberg, William S. Robinson, C. Michael Knauer, Peter B. Gregory – 1 January 1981 – In our double‐blind randomized trial of methylprednisolone vs. placebo in severe viral hepatitis, 16 patients with hepatitis B (8 on steroid, 8 on placebo) were followed for at least 4 weeks. Four of the eight patients receiving methylprednisolone eventually died and all patients on placebo survived. Despite marked reduction in serum IgG in steroid‐treated patients, the decline in HBsAg titer and disappearance of Dane particle markers was the same in both treatment groups.

Irwin M. Arias – 1 January 1981

1 January 1981

Sidney Goldfischer, Harold W. Grotsky, Chung‐Ho Chang, Errol L. Berman, Robert R. Richert, Sushama D. Karmarkar, Jacqueline O. Roskamp, Rachel Morecki – 1 January 1981 – Autopsy studies of two infants, one a newborn, the other 4 months old, revealed massive amounts of iron in lysosomes of hepatocytes and pancreatic acinar cells. Iron, which had been transported across the placenta, accumulated in the same cell types as in adults with primary and secondary hemochromatosis.

Samuel W. French – 1 January 1981

Harold O. Conn – 1 January 1981

Robert P. Batzinger, Ernest Bueding, Hans Popper – 1 January 1981 – Oral administration to mice of high doses of 4‐isothiocyano‐4′nitrodiphenylamine (amoscanate), a potent antischistosomal drug, produced focal necrotizing lesions of the large intrahepatic and extrahepatic bile ducts and the gallbladder. Coadministration of erythromycin and, to a somewhat lesser degree, of paromomycin, markedly reduced the effects of amoscanate on the biliary tract.

Angelos Afroudakis, Neil Kaplowitz – 1 January 1981 – The liver histopathology in 40 liver biopsies from 24 patients with verified chronic common bile duct stenosis due to chronic alcoholic pancreatitis has been reviewed code‐blinded. This represents an 8% prevalence of this complication in approximately 300 patients with alcoholic pancreatitis screened biochemically for alkaline phosphatase >two‐fold for >1 month. The majority were anicteric with no symptoms other than from acute exacerbations of chronic pancreatitis.

Michael A. Dunn, Sam Seifter, Penelope K. Hait – 1 January 1981 – Proline, a critical substrate for collagen synthesis, is increased in liver undergoing fibrosis. In mice with schistosomiasis, the incorporation of proline into collagen occurs within liver granulomas. To study the interaction of liver cells and granulomas in the development of fibrosis, we assayed the enzymes that catalyze the formation and degradation of proline in isolated granulomas and liver.

David A. Shafritz, Michael C. Kew – 1 January 1981 – DNA extracts from hepatocellular carcinomas of 13 patients from South Africa were examined for hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA sequences by molecular hybridization using [32P]‐labeled recombinant, cloned, and purified HBV‐DNA. Eight patients were HBV carriers as demonstrated by the presence of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) in their serum, and each of these patients had HBV‐DNA sequences in hepatocellular carcinoma tissue. Five patients who were not HBsAg carriers, did not have HBV‐DNA in their tumors.