Association of age-dependent liver injury and fibrosis with immune cell populations.

Background & Aims: The liver's response to injury is fibrosis, and when chronic, cirrhosis. Age is a critical factor impacting many immune-mediated processes, potentially including the liver's wounding response to injury.

Methods: The effects of age on acute and chronic liver injury were evaluated using a carbon tetrachloride model in mice.

Antihuman factor V antibodies after use of relatively pure bovine thrombin.

Although bovine thrombin is commonly used in the operating room, there is evidence that exposure to bovine thrombin can result in the development of autoimmune antibodies, usually against factor V, which can lead to a profound coagulopathy. It is thought that impurities in bovine thrombin preparations are responsible for the adverse reactions in patients. Here we describe a case in which exposure to a relatively pure bovine thrombin preparation resulted in the development of an antihuman factor V antibody-associated coagulopathy.