Rolf Teschke, Fernando Moreno, Edgar Heinen, Jorg Herrmann, Hans‐Ludwig Kruskemper, Georg Strohmeyer – 1 January 1983 – To study the effect of chronic alcohol consumption on hepatic levels of thyroid hormones, female Sprague‐Dawley rats (n = 24) were pair‐fed nutritionally adequate liquid diets containing either ethanol (36% of total calories) or isocaloric carbohydrates for 21 days. Compared to controls, chronic alcohol consumption failed to result in a significant change of hepatic thyroid hormone levels (thyroxine: 14.7 ± 1.81 ng per gm of liver wet weight vs.

1 January 1983

Peter Banninger, Josef Altorfer, Gert G. Frösner, Mauro Pirovino, Fred Gudat, Leonardo Bianchi, Peter J. Grob, Martin Schmid – 1 January 1983 – Anti‐HBc IgM was determined by a modified radioimmunoassay (RIA) in 35 patients with acute hepatitis B, 35 patients with chronic hepatitis B (7 with chronic persistent, and 28 with chronic active hepatitis), 157 HBsAg positive blood donors, and in 143 HBsAg negative but anti‐HBc positive donors. The results of the RIA test were compared with those obtained by an ELISA technique.

P. Kurki, A. Miettinen, M. Salaspuro, I. Virtanen, S. Stenman – 1 January 1983 – Antibodies to cytoplasmic microfilaments, intermediate filaments (vimentin filaments), and microtubules which comprise the cytoskeleton of the cell were assayed in sera from 23 patients with HBsAg‐negative chronic active hepatitis and 1 with HBsAg‐positive chronic active hepatitis, 15 patients with primary biliary cirrhosis, 20 patients with alcoholic liver disease, and 32 healthy controls.

H. Hoofnagle – 1 January 1983

Abraham M. Rudolph – 1 January 1983 – The course of the venous circulation in the fetal liver has been studied in fetal lambs by means of the radionuclide‐labeled microsphere technique. About 50% of umbilical venous blood passes through the ductus venosus, while the remainder is distributed to both lobes of the liver. Portal venous blood is largely distributed to the right lobe of the liver, with a small proportion passing through the ductus venosus and none to the left lobe. Because of these flow patterns, oxygen saturation is lower in the right than in the left hepatic vein.

Henry C. Bodenheimer, Nicholas F. Larusso, Walter R. Thayer, Colette Charland, Parker J. Staples, Jurgen Ludwig – 1 January 1983 – Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) is a syndrome of unknown etiology characterized by an association with inflammatory bowel disease in 50% or more cases. Since altered immunity, including circulating immune complexes, has been implicated in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bowel disease, we postulated that humoral immune mechanisms might also be important in the development of PSC.

Marcello Piazza, Vincenzo Guadagnino, Ludovico Picciotto, Renato De Mercato, Antonio Chirianni, Raffaele Orlando, Gerard Golden – 1 January 1983 – A double‐blind trial was carried out on 124 randomized patients with acute viral hepatitis, of whom 58 were treated with (+)‐cyanidanol‐3 in a dose of 3 gm per day and 66 with placebo. The treatment was given for 50 days. At 5‐day intervals, SGPT, SGOT, and total serum bilirubin levels were tested.

Samuel W. French, Boris H. Ruebner, Esteban Mezey, Tsunenobu Tamura, Charles H. Halsted – 1 January 1983 – The effect of chronic ethanol feeding on hepatic mitochondrial morphology and histochemically measured succinic dehydrogenase activity was assessed. Five monkeys of the species Macaca radiata received a nutritionally adequate diet containing 50% of the calories as ethanol, while five others were pair‐fed the same diet except that ethanol was isocalorically substituted by carbohydrate.

Françoise Roudot‐Thoraval, Marc Halphen, Dominique Larde, Martine Galliot, Jean‐Claude Rymer, Frederic Galacteros, Daniel Dhumeaux – 1 January 1983 – The therapeutic management of patients with idiopathic hemochromatosis (IH) implies the evaluation of excess hepatic iron. This work was undertaken to confirm the value of computed tomography for the assessment of liver iron overload in such patients and to evaluate this technique during the course of treatment by phlebotomy.