Carla Colombo, Maria Rita Castellani, William F. Balistreri, Ettore Seregni, Maria Luisa Assaisso, Annamaria Giunta – 1 April 1992 – We have previously documented that ursodeoxycholic acid exerts a beneficial effect on liver function and bile acid metabolism in patients with cystic fibrosis. We hypothesized that the mechanism of action may be related in part to the choleretic properties of the administered bile acid.

1 April 1992

Peter J. Scheuer, Parvin Ashrafzadeh, Sheila Sherlock, David Brown, Geoffrey M. Dusheiko – 1 April 1992 – To determine the histologic pattern of hepatitis C, 54 liver biopsy specimens from 45 patients with a clinicopathological diagnosis of hepatitis C were studied. All patients were seropositive for antibody to hepatitis C virus by second‐generation testing. Both transfusion‐related and sporadic cases were included. More than half the samples showed chronic hepatitis without cirrhosis, whereas 44% showed developing or fully established cirrhosis.

Sylvie Ricard‐Blum, Solange Bresson‐Hadni, Dominique‐Angèle Vuitton, Gerard Ville, Jean‐Alexis Grimaud – 1 April 1992 – Liver samples from patients with three different types of liver diseases, alveolar echinococcosis (a dense and irreversible fibrosis), hepatocellular carcinoma and alcoholic cirrhosis, were analyzed for their content in hydroxypyridinium cross‐links found in mature collagen. We demonstrated the presence of small amounts of pyridinoline in control livers (0.27 ± 0.06 pmol/pmol of collagen).

Silvia Fargion, Clara Mandelli, Alberto Piperno, Bruno Cesana, Anna L. Fracanzani, Mirella Fraquelli, Paolo A. Bianchi, Gemino Fiorelli, Dario Conte – 1 April 1992 – Two hundred twelve Italian patients with genetic hemochromatosis (181 men, mean age 50 ± 11 yr; and 31 women, mean age 49 ± 10 yr) were followed for a median period of 44 mo (range = 3 to 218 mo). Alcohol abuse was present in 31 subjects (15%), and chronic HBV and HCV infection were seen in 19 (9%) and 35 (24%) of 145 cases tested, respectively. Twenty‐four patients (11%) had concomitant p‐thalassemia trait.

Markus Meyer, Klaus Hermann Wiedorn, Peter Hans Hofschneider, Rajen Koshy, Wolfgang Helmut Caselmann – 1 April 1992 – Chronic hepatitis B virus infection is often associated with major structural rearrangements of both the integrated viral DNA and the associated cellular sequences. We present here the structure of a single‐copy hepatitis B virus insert cloned from human hepatocellular carcinoma DNA recently reported to encode a novel transcriptional trans‐activator function.

Philip Board, Toshirou Nishida, Zenaida Gatmaitan, Mingxin Che, Irwin M. Arias – 1 April 1992 – The Dubin‐Johnson syndrome is manifested by conjugated hyperbilirubinemia and pigment accumulation in hepatocellular lysosomes. The TR‐ rat model is a phenotypic model of the Dubin‐Johnson syndrome and is characterized by defective ATP‐dependent transport of a group of nonbile acid organic anions, including glutathione‐S‐conjugates and oxidized glutathione, across the bile canaliculus. Similar ATP‐dependent transport mechanisms have been described in erythrocytes.

John H. McAfee, Emmet B. Keeffe, Randall G. Lee, Josef Rösch – 1 April 1992

1 April 1992

Nancy Bach, Swan N. Thung, Fenton Schaffner – 1 April 1992 – Before the availability of serological markers for hepatitis C, the morphological features of this diagnosis, which represents most non‐A, non‐B hepatitis, could not be confirmed. We examined biopsy specimens from 50 patients with chronic hepatitis C and 21 patients with autoimmune chronic hepatitis. Each biopsy specimen was graded on 19 different histological features. The results indicated that at the time of biopsy, the average age of patients with chronic hepatitis C was 46 yr vs. 36 yr for autoimmune chronic hepatitis.