Mayumi Hasegawa, Sadako Yamada, Chisato Hirayama – 1 December 1989 – Fasting plasma caffeine concentrations, plasma levels of catecholamines and plasma renin activity were measured in patients with cirrhosis and control patients without hepatic dysfunction. A careful dietary history showed no significant difference in caffeine consumption (mean ± S.E.) among 46 cirrhotics (86 ± 7 mg per day) vs. 34 control patients (91 ± 8 mg per day).

Claudio Tiribelli, Mauro Melato, Lory S. Crocè, Luigi Giarelli, Kunio Okuda, Kunihiko Ohnishi – 1 December 1989 – A comparative, descriptive study on the prevalence of hepatocellular carcinoma either associated or not with cirrhosis was undertaken between the cities of Trieste, Italy, and Chiba, Japan. Data were derived from 12,340 and 2,052 autopsies consecutively performed in Trieste and Chiba during 1980 to 1984 and 1975 to 1985, respectively. During these years, more than 70% of all deaths were studied by autopsy in Trieste.

Elwyn Elias, Rosemary Waring – 1 December 1989

1 December 1989

Adrian M. di Bisceglie, Francesco Negro – 1 December 1989

Johannes Bircher, Charles M. A. Bijleveld, Roel J. Vonk, Folkert Kuipers – 1 December 1989

Francesco Negro, Ferruccio Bonino, Adrian Di Bisceglie, Jay H. Hoofnagle, John L. Gerin – 1 December 1989 – The intrahepatic distribution of hepatitis delta virus RNA was studied by in situ hybridization in 33 formalin‐fixed, paraffin‐embedded biopsies from 17 chronic hepatitis B virus carriers superinfected with hepatitis delta virus. The findings were correlated with the expression of the hepatitis delta antigen, the duration of the hepatitis delta virus infection and the eosinophilic degeneration of the hepatocytes.

Joseph Klain, Drora Fraser, Jed Goldstein, Jochanan Peiser, Eliezer Avinoah, Amnon Ovnat, Ilan Charuzi – 1 November 1989 – A prospective study was undertaken in order to investigate the association between clinical and biochemical parameters and the histopathological findings in liver biopsies in the morbidly obese. Wedge liver biopsy specimens were taken at the beginning of the surgical procedure from 100 consecutive morbidly obese patients undergoing Roux‐en‐Y gastric bypass.

Patricia M. Grambsch, E. Rolland Dickson, Marshall Kaplan, Gene Lesage, Thomas R. Fleming, Alice L. Langworthy – 1 November 1989 – The generalizability of the Mayo model for predicting survival in individual primary biliary cirrhosis patients without liver transplantation was tested and confirmed. The model was applied to a data base of patients from the New England Medical Center Hospitals (n = 141) and the Scott and White Clinic (n = 35) and found to predict their survival accurately.

Patrice A. Michaletz, Ludèk Cap, Elliot Alpert, Bernhard H. Lauterburg – 1 November 1989 – A breath test to assess hepatic mitochondrial function in vivo was evaluated in rats. Following the i.p. administration of [1‐14C]‐α‐ketoisocaproic acid, 14CO2 exhalation reached a peak within 10 to 20 min and then declined exponentially, with a half‐life of 14.3 min. Control animals exhaled 38.6% of the administered radioactivity within 1 hr.