Koji Manabe, Peter T. Donaldson, James A. Underhill, Derek G. Doherty, Giorgina Mieli‐Vergani, Ian G. McFarlane, Adrian L. W. F. Eddleston, Roger Williams – 1 December 1993 – Genetic susceptibility to autoimmune hepatitis is associated with the human leukocyte antigen haplotype A1‐B8‐DR3 and DR4. To date, only one study in Japan has considered the human leukocyte antigen DP locus in this disease, and no studies have been reported in whites.

Eric M. Webber, Mark J. Fitzgerald, Pamela I. Brown, Molly H. Bartlett, Nelson Fausto – 1 December 1993 – Transforming growth factor‐α and hepatocyte growth factor are important stimulators of hepatocyte proliferation. In this series of experiments we sought to measure the expression of transforming growth factor‐α mRNA by hepatocytes in response to toxic liver injury produced by carbon tetrachloride or galactosamine and to perform a more detailed analysis of transforming growth factor‐α expression after partial hepatectomy.

Mikihiro Tsutsumi, Yoshiro Matsuda, Akira Takada – 1 December 1993 – Cytochrome P‐450 2E1 is a specific isozyme of cytochrome P‐450 induced by ethanol. P‐450 2E1 may also be the only enzyme that metabolizes N‐nitrosodimethylamine at a very low concentration. Because N‐nitrosodimethylamine is a procarcinogen, the possibility that induction of P‐450 2E1 by alcohol abuse may accelerate the carcinogenic action of a very small dose of N‐nitrosodimethylamine should be considered.

Peter Ott, Susanne Keiding, Ludvik Bass – 1 December 1993 – Indocyanine green is used to estimate liver blood flow rate and hepatic intrinsic clearance. However, its use as a test substance for studies of liver function has been limited by two puzzling kinetic observations: a biexponential plasma decay after bolus injection with an extremely slow late phase and an apparently steadily decreasing clearance value during constant infusion. These observations have been made with spectrophotometric concentration analysis.

Bruce W. Donaldson, Ramya Gopinath, Ian R. Wanless, M. James Phillips, Ross Cameron, Eve A. Roberts, Paul D. Greig, Gary Levy, Laurence M. Blendis – 1 December 1993 – Early and accurate diagnosis and prognosis of patients with fulminant liver failure is of critical importance for optimum management. We investigated the role of transjugular liver biopsy in the management of patients with fulminant liver failure and assessed its value in comparison with the recently proposed King's College criteria.

Hisayuki Miura, Kurt Jungermann, Andreas Gardemann – 1 December 1993 – In an earlier study it was found (a) that arterial noradrenaline caused increases in glucose and lactate output slower in onset, smaller in peak height and clearly longer in duration than those caused by portal noradrenaline and (b) that arterial noradrenaline was extracted to a much greater extent than portal noradrenaline.

Ekapot Bhunchet, Kaori Fujieda – 1 December 1993 – The processes of capillarization and venularization of sinusoids after porcine serum‐induced rat liver fibrosis were studied by light and electron microscopy. Accompanying the development of fibrosis in the walls of central veins, most of the sinusoidal outlets collapsed, resulting in the formation of hepatic limiting plates around central veins.

Antonio Martinez, Paul D. Berk – 1 December 1993

1 December 1993

Robert Perrillo, Larry Mimms, Kenneth Schechtman, David Robbins, Carolyn Campbell – 1 December 1993 – The serological endpoint of response in the treatment of chronic hepatitis B is the loss of hepatitis B virus DNA and HBeAg. Because the quantitative measurement of hepatitis B virus DNA in serum has been shown to be useful for monitoring and predicting response to interferon‐α therapy, we decided to evaluate whether changes in HBeAg concentration could also be used in this manner.