1 December 1991

Esteban Mezey, Joan Caballería, Mack C. Mitchell, Albert Parés, H. Franklin Herlong, Joan Rodés – 1 December 1991 – The effect of parenteral amino acid administration on nutritional state, liver function and mortality was assessed in patients with severe alcoholic hepatitis. Twenty‐eight patients received 2 1/day of a solution of dextrose (65 gm/L) and amino acids (25.8 gm/L) for 1 mo, whereas 26 received only the dextrose solution. All patients were allowed to eat a standard hospital diet.

Frederik Nevens, M. Pilar Pizcueta, Mercedes Fernández, Jaime Bosch, Joan Rodés – 1 December 1991 – Serotonergic mechanisms have recently been implicated in the pathogenesis of portal hypertension; this suggests that blockade of serotonin S2 receptors may be a new approach for the pharmacological therapy of portal hypertension.

Mette Rye Clausen, Per Brøbech Mortensen, Flemming Bendtsen – 1 December 1991 – Short‐chain fatty acids cause reversible coma in animals and may contribute to the pathogenesis of the hepatic coma in humans. The concentrations of short‐chain fatty acids in peripheral venous blood were significantly elevated in 15 patients with hepatic encephalopathy caused by cirrhosis (362 ± 83 μmol/L; mean ± S.E.M.) compared with 17 cirrhotic patients without encephalopathy (178 ± 57 μmol/L) and 11 normal individuals (60 ± 8 μmol/L).

Arthur J. McCullough, Kevin D. Mullen, Satish C. Kalhan – 1 December 1991 – Using H2[18O] tracer isotope dilution and corrected bromide space as standard reference techniques, we determined total body water and extracellular water in cirrhotic patients with (four men and four women) and without (seven men and six women) ascites and compared them with a normal control group (eight men and six women). These results were then compared with calculations of total body and extracellular water determined by the bioelectrical impedance analysis technique.

Michael Sackmann, Juergen Pauletzki, Uelker Aydemir, Joseph Holl, Tilman Sauerbruch, Joerg Hasford, Gustav Paumgartner – 1 December 1991 – A prospective, double‐blind, randomized, single‐center study was conducted to compare ursodeoxycholic acid alone with the combination of ursodeoxycholic acid and chenodeoxycholic acid for dissolution therapy of gallstone fragments after shock wave lithotripsy.

1 December 1991

Takashi Maeda, Bruce E. Loveland, Merrill J. Rowley, Ian R. Mackay – 1 December 1991 – Autoantibodies in primary biliary cirrhosis recognize mitochondrial 2‐oxacid dehydrogenase complexes, particularly the E2 subunits. Reactivity with the E3 subunit, common to each of the enzyme complexes, was sought by immunoblotting, with sera screened at 1:100 instead of the conventional 1:1,000 dilution. This was found in 11 of 29 sera from patients with primary biliary cirrhosis but also in 10 of 40 sera from normal subjects.

Tariq Ismail, John Howl, Mark Wheatley, Paul McMaster, James M. Neuberger, Alastair J. Strain – 1 December 1991 – Although the ability of hormones and growth factors to stimulate DNA synthesis in rat hepatocytes has been investigated extensively, no such study of human hepatocytes has been reported. Here we describe a series of experiments to identify those factors that regulate human hepatocyte DNA synthesis in vitro and which therefore may play a role in the control of human liver regeneration.

George Bird, Johnson Y. N. Lau, John Koskinas, Claire Wicks, Roger Williams – 1 December 1991 – In a randomized, controlled trial to investigate the possible benefit of insulin and glucagon therapy in severe acute alcoholic hepatitis, 86 patients were randomized to receive 30 U insulin and 3 mg glucagon in 250 ml 5% dextrose over 12 hr each day for 3 wk or a similar regime of identical placebo. No significant differences were seen in patients' clinical characteristics and disease severity in the treated and placebo groups.