<div><p><b>Background: </b>The relative prevalence of health care barriers for patients with CLD vs. those with non-CLD chronic diseases and the cumulative effect of these barriers on recurrent acute care use remains unknown. We aimed to assess the number of health care barriers and their association with acute care use by CLD vs. chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and/or cardiovascular disease (CVD).</p>

<div><p><b>Background:</p> </b><p>The homeostasis of gut microbiota is pivotal to maintaining the physiological liver-gut axis. In cholestatic diseases, impaired bile flow changes the composition of gut bacteria and subsequently dysregulates the bile acids metabolisms. Beneficial roles of vancomycin (VCM) in treating patients with sclerosing cholangitis have been reported; yet the mechanism is not clear. The therapeutic values of the intestinal microbiome restoration in cholestatic disease are less explored.</p>

<div><p><b>Background: </b>Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) is the fastest-growing etiology of liver disease for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) added to the liver transplantation (LT) waitlist in the US. Patients with MASH-HCC are disproportionately of Hispanic ethnicity, who have historically had poorer access to LT than non-Hispanic (NH) whites. However, it is unclear whether racial and ethnic minorities are waitlisted and transplanted for MASH-HCC at lower-than-expected rates.</p>

<div><p><b>Background: </b>Macrophage (MF) are recruited to the liver during MASH progression, including fibrogenic TREM2+ hepatic lipid associated MF (LAMs). However, the TREM2 receptor itself is anti-fibrotic, in that <em>Trem2^-/-</em> mice have more severe MASH than WT mice. Despite these recent studies, little is known about mechanisms that regulate MF function during MASH regression.

<div><p><b>Background: </b>Environmental pollutants cause liver damage and telomere shortening. Effects may vary by race/ethnicity. This study examined interactions among liver-related outcomes, telomere length, and environmental pollutants by race/ethnicity.</p>

<div><p><b>Background: </b>AASLD and EASL guidelines recommend all people with cirrhosis undergo twice yearly screening for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) with hepatic imaging. However, patient, provider, and system level barriers impede ongoing surveillance efforts. This stepped-wedge hybrid effectiveness-implementation trial assessed the impacts of using a quality improvement playbook called Getting to Implementation (GTI) to support VA facilities to select, implement, and evaluate data-driven strategies to improve HCC surveillance.</p>

<div><p><b>Background: </b>Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)-related fibrosis is heritable, but it is unclear how family history may be used to identify first-degree relatives with advanced fibrosis. We aimed to develop and validate a simple risk score to identify first-degree relatives of probands who have undergone assessment of liver fibrosis who are at higher risk of NAFLD with advanced fibrosis.</p>

<div><p><strong><b>Background:</strong> </b>The patatin-like phospholipase domain-containing protein 3 (PNPLA3) gene is strongly implicated in the development of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH). Gene silencing approaches are being considered for treatment of MASH but there are limited blood-based biomarkers of PNPLA3 homozygosity.

<div><p><b>Background: </b>In-hospital mortality of cirrhosis patients with septic shock is higher than in other patients and exceeds 70%. These patients have high output cardiac failure secondary to severe systemic vasodilatation which is refractory to catecholamines. Terlipressin, as a second vasopressor, can provide the severe systemic vasodilation and improve macro and microcirculation. Terlipressin has been used either as continuous infusion or boluses in hepatorenal syndrome.

<div><p><b>Background: </b>We have been developing a liver regeneration therapy for decompensated liver cirrhosis (DLC) using cultured autologous bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs). Currently, we are conducting a clinical trial called "Self-contained liver cirrhosis regeneration therapy (jRCT2063200014)". In our clinical trial, hepatic arterial infusion of cultured autologous BMSCs has ameliorated liver function and fibrosis in patients with DLC. However, the mechanism of anti-fibrotic action of BMSCs remain to be fully determined.