Massimo Colombo, Roberto de Franchis, Maurizio Tommasini, Angelo Sangiovanni, Nicola Dioguardi – 1 March 1989 – To assess the efficacy of β‐blockers in preventing rebleeding in selected cirrhotic patients and to compare the tolerance, safety and patient compliance of a selective and a nonselective β‐blocker, 94 patients were randomly assigned to propranolol (32 patients), atenolol (32 patients) or placebo (30 patients). Randomization was made at least 15 days after the bleeding episode.

Brent E. Korba, Frances V. Wells, Betty Baldwin, Paul J. Cote, Bud C. Tennant, Hans Popper, John L. Gerin – 1 March 1989 – During long‐term studies of the natural history of woodchuck hepatitis virus infection, five cases of histologically confirmed, primary hepatocellular carcinoma were observed in a total of 92 woodchucks which had recovered, by analysis of viral serologic markers (WHsAG−, anti‐WHc+, anti‐WHs+), from experimental acute woodchuck hepatitis virus infections 20 to 30 months prior to the detection of hepatocellular carcinoma.

Kevin D. Mullen, Arthur J. McCullough – 1 March 1989

Norman A. Mazer – 1 March 1989 – We have developed a simple method to quantitate cholesterol nucleation promoting activity in bile. The method makes use of the fact that gallbladder bile of cholesterol gallstone patients contains potent nucleation promoting activity. Gallbladder bile samples were serially diluted, routinely from 1/25 to 1/6,400. The diluted samples were mixed with a supersaturated model bile and the nucleation time (NT) of the mixtures was determined.

1 March 1989

Sien‐Sing Yang, Jacob Korula, James E. Sundheimer, Anthony J. Keyser – 1 March 1989 – Digoxin‐like immunoreactive substances, which cross‐react with digoxin antibody, have been found to have natriuretic effect and Na+,K+‐ATPase inhibitory effect. The role of digoxin‐like immunoreactive substances in chronic liver disease was studied by radioimmunoassay in 63 serum and 60 urine samples from 58 patients with chronic liver disease and compared with 16 controls.

Guy Renaud, Robert L. Hamilton, Richard J. Havel – 1 March 1989 – Rats were treated with 17α‐ethinyl estradiol to induce high levels of low‐density lipoprotein receptors in hepatocytes. When these rats were given intravenous injections of low‐density lipoprotein‐colloidal gold complexes, most of the gold (labeled with 195Au) appeared to be taken up by Kupffer cells, as were complexes of colloidal gold with albumin or polyvinylpyrrolidone.

Takashi Matsumata, Takashi Kanematsu, Kenji Takenaka, Yasuhiro Yoshida, Takashi Nishizaki, Keizo Sugimachi – 1 March 1989 – Using selective angiograms of the liver, we analyzed the patterns of intrahepatic recurrence of hepatocellular carcinomas following curative surgery. In 33 patients with intraheptaic recurrences, seven patients (21%) had a recurrence near the resected hepatic stump. The remaining 26 had either a nodular recurrence in segments away from the resected margin or a widespread multinodular recurrence in the liver remnant.

Seymour Mishkin, Shaindel Y. Mishkin, Julius Erdstein – 1 March 1989 – The liver is a steroid‐responsive organ and contains high levels of androgen receptors (AR). The present study investigated cytosolic AR concentrations in diseased human liver obtained by needle biopsy. Insufficient tissue was available for full Scatchard analysis. Previous studies have shown the binding affinity of the liver AR to be sufficiently constant to allow the use of a single saturating dose analysis, using 3H‐mibolerone as the active ligand, for the estimation of binding sites.

Christian Bréchot – 1 March 1989