Leonardo Fainboim, Maria Cristina Cañero Velasco, Cintia Y. Marcos, Mirta Ciocca, Adriana Roy, Graciela Theiler, Monica Capucchio, Silvia Nuncifora, Livio Sala, Marta Zelazko – 30 December 2003 – HLA alleles are known to be associated with susceptibility to develop autoimmune hepatitis (AH), and hepatitis A virus (HAV) infection is postulated as a putative trigger for AH. We investigated whether HLA may influence the outcome of the HAV infection by studying 67 children with self‐limited and 39 children with protracted forms of this infection.

Philippe Podevin, Abdelmajid Sabile, Rodrigo Gajardo, Nadira Delhem, Annie Abadie, Pierre‐Yves Lozach, Laura Beretta, Christian Bréchot – 30 December 2003 – The impact of hepatitis C virus NS5A protein mutations on interferon alfa (IFN‐α) signaling pathway, cell proliferation, and viability is an important issue that is still under debate. We have therefore combined transient and stable expression in a human hepatocytic cell line (Huh7) of 3 full‐length NS5A sequences, isolated from patients with or without response to IFN‐α therapy.

Karen L. Lindsay, Christian Trepo, Tobias Heintges, Mitchell L. Shiffman, Stuart C. Gordon, John C. Hoefs, Eugene R. Schiff, Zachary D. Goodman, Mark Laughlin, Ruji Yao, Janice K. Albrecht – 30 December 2003 – This international, randomized, active‐controlled, parallel‐group, double‐blind dose‐finding study compared peginterferon alfa‐2b (PegIntron™) to interferon alfa‐2b for the initial treatment of compensated chronic hepatitis C.

Giovanni Rolla, Luisa Brussino, Luca Dutto, Antonio Ottobrelli, Caterina Bucca – 30 December 2003 – Severe hypoxemia may occur in patients with liver disease as a result of abnormal intrapulmonary vasodilatations (hepatopulmonary syndrome, HPS). Liver transplantation (LT) is the only effective treatment of HPS, with a quite variable delay of improvement of oxygenation. Smoking, by decreasing respiratory nitric oxide (NO), apparently contributed to improved oxygenation in a 44‐year‐old man with alcohol‐induced cirrhosis, complicated by HPS, who underwent LT.

Nobuhiro Ikuno, Marita Scealy, Janet M. Davies, Senga F. Whittingham, Katsuhisa Omagari, Ian R. Mackay, Merrill J. Rowley – 30 December 2003 – Primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) and autoimmune cholangitis (AIC) are serologic expressions of an autoimmune liver disease affecting biliary ductular cells.

D. Montgomery Bissell, Dominique Roulot, Jacob George – 30 December 2003

Yukihiro Inomata, Taro Nakamura, Shinji Uemoto, Koichi Tanaka, Go Wakabayashi, Motohide Shimazu – 30 December 2003 – The liver from a patient with familial amyloid polyneuropathy (FAP) scheduled for living donor liver transplantation can be split and transplanted into 2 adult patients with end‐stage liver disease. We have performed this procedure, called domino split transplantation, twice. The native liver was split in situ in 1 patient with FAP and ex situ in the other patient with FAP.

Rajiv Jalan, David E. Newby, Steven W.M. Olde Damink, Doris N. Redhead, Peter C. Hayes, Alistair Lee – 30 December 2003 – This report describes the instantaneous changes in cerebral blood flow (CBF), determined by intravascular ultrasound and Doppler, in a patient with cirrhosis undergoing placement of a transjugular intrahepatic stent‐shunt for uncontrolled variceal bleeding. Acute changes in CBF were observed during and after portasystemic shunting, which culminated in cerebral edema and cerebral herniation.

Viswanath B. Unnithan, Suzanne H.E. Veehof, Philip Rosenthal, Christine Mudge, Teresa H. O'Brien, Patricia Painter – 30 December 2003 – Liver transplantation is accepted as the standard management for end‐stage liver disease in children. Pediatric heart and heart‐lung transplant recipients have shown significantly diminished exercise capacities compared with age‐matched, able‐bodied, control subjects.

Geoffrey Haydon, James Neuberger – 30 December 2003