Marie‐gwenaëlle Poullain, Alain Fautrel, Claire Guyomard, Christophe Chesne, Luc Grislain, André Guillouzo – 1 January 1992 – Hepatocytes isolated from adult rat livers were hypothermically preserved for 24 or 48 hr before being plated under conventional culture conditions. They were stored either in the Leibovitz medium, a cell culture medium with and without polyethylene glycol (PEG), a compound known to suppress ischemia‐induced cell swelling, or in the University of Wisconsin solution, the most effective solution for cold organ preservation.

George K. Michalopoulos, Reza Zarnegar – 1 January 1992 – The two papers in this issue of HEPATOLOGY (1, 2) dealing with hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) underscore the increasing importance of this novel growth factor in relation to hepatic growth biology. The emerging literature has already established HGF as a growth factor with potential importance not only for the liver but for other tissues such as the kidney, placenta, brain, lung, pancreas and hemopoietic tissues.

Christine Silvain, Luc de Bayser, Gerard Agius, Alain Sadoun, Michel Beauchant – 1 January 1992

Marie‐Anne Loriot, Patrick Marcellin, Eric Bismuth, Michèle Martinot‐Peignoux, Nathalie Boyer, Claude Degott, Serge Erlinger, Jean‐Pierre Benhamou – 1 January 1992 – The objective was to determine the proportion of patients with chronic hepatitis B in whom hepatitis B virus DNA is demonstrated by polymerase chain reaction after HBeAg to anti‐HBe or HBsAg to anti‐HBs spontaneous or therapeutically induced seroconversion.

Jean‐Claude Trinchet, Beverley Balkau, Renée E. Poupon, François Heintzmann, Patrice Callard, Cécile Gotheil, Jean‐Didier Grange, Denis Vetter, Arnaud Pauwels, Hélène Labadie, Olivier Chazouilleres, Philippe Mavier, Hervé Desmorat, Jean‐Pierre Zarski, Jean‐Claude Barbare, Jean‐françois Chambre, E. Alexandre Pariente, Dominique Roulot, Michel Beaugrand – 1 January 1992 – Severe alcoholic hepatitis is still a therapeutic challenge. It has been recently advocated that a 3‐wk infusion with insulin and glucagon reduces its short‐term mortality rate.

John G. McHutchison, John L. Person, Sugantha Govindarajan, Boontar Valinluck, Tessie Gore, Steven R. Lee, Mitchell Nelles, Alan Polito, David Chien, Robert DiNello, Stella Quan, George Kuo, Allan G. Redeker – 1 January 1992 – Sera from 483 patients at high (group 1, n = 313) and lower (group 2, n = 170) risk for exposure to hepatitis C were tested for antibodies to hepatitis C using first‐generation (c100‐3) and second‐generation enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assays and four‐antigen recombinant immunoblot assay.

Makoto Hashizume, Seigo Kitano, Nobuhiro Koyanagi, Kazuo Tanoue, Masayuki Ohta, Hiroya Wada, Hirohiko Yamaga, Hidefumi Higashi, Yasunori Iso, Tetsuya Iwanaga, Keizo Sugimachi – 1 January 1992 – We report here the results of endoscopic injection sclerotherapy performed in 1,000 consecutively treated Japanese patients with esophageal varices. This prospective study covered the period from 1982 to 1990. Variceal bleeding was controlled in 215 (97.7%) of 220 patients. Esophageal varices were completely eradicated in 778 patients (77.8%); the mean number of sessions was 4.2.

Raymond S. Koff – 1 January 1992

Howard C. Thomas – 1 January 1992 – Background. A nosocomial outbreak of fulminant hepatitis B occurred in five patients in Haifa, Israel. Previous investigations identified the suspected source as a carrier of hepatitis B surface antigen who was positive for antibodies to hepatitis B e antigen and had chronic liver disease. We examined the strain of hepatitis B virus (HBV) that caused this epidemic, in order to identify specific mutations in the precore or core region.

Peter Schirmacher, Albert Geerts, Antonello Pietrangelo, Hans P. Dienes, Charles E. Rogler – 1 January 1992 – Hepatocyte growth factor/hepatopoietin A is a complete mitogen for parenchymal liver cells, and its expression is increased as an early response to acute liver injury. To identify the liver cell population responsible for hepatocyte growth factor gene expression, we investigated tissue sections and isolated and purified cell fractions from normal rat liver by in situ and Northern blot hybridization.