One-month mortality rate after liver transplantation for parenchymal cirrhosis: analysis of risk factors in a ten year period.

Accurate prediction of short-term survival rate after liver transplantation is one way of selecting recipients and should improve organ allocation. We observed, during the first ten years of our program a striking decline in postoperative mortality with time, a well known observation in Europe as well as in the United States. In 65 adults with parenchymal cirrhosis having received a liver transplant between 1984 and 1994, we examined the possible influence of various preoperative risk factors on one-month mortality rate which was 13.

Overexpression of pterin-4a-carbinolamine dehydratase/dimerization cofactor of hepatocyte nuclear factor 1 in human colon cancer.

Pterin-4a-carbinolamine dehydratase (PCD) is a bifunctional protein also known as DCoH (dimerization co-factor of hepatocyte nuclear factor 1 (HNF1)). PCD/DCoH modulates the DNA binding specificity of HNF1, thus acting on its transcriptional activity. In addition, it participates in the recycling of tetrahydrobiopterin (BH(4)), an essential cofactor of several metabolic reactions.

Multisystemic production of interleukin 10 limits the severity of acute pancreatitis in mice.

Background: Interleukin 10 (IL-10) decreases the severity of experimental acute pancreatitis. The role of endogenous IL-10 in modulating the course of pancreatitis is currently unknown.

Aims: To examine the systemic release of IL-10 and its messenger RNA production in the pancrease, liver, and lungs and analyse the effects of IL-10 neutralisation in caerulein induced acute pancreatitis in mice.

Expression of transforming growth factor beta receptors in normal human colon and sporadic adenocarcinomas.

Background & Aims: An absence or a presence of mutated transforming growth factor (TGF)-beta receptors is a possible hypothesis explaining the resistance of cancer cells to the growth-inhibitory effect of TGF-beta. Mutations involving microsatellite-like regions of the type II TGF-beta receptor have been described in subgroups of colorectal cancers. The aim of this study was to investigate the expression and distribution of TGF-beta receptors in sporadic colorectal cancers and normal tissues.

Glucose responsiveness and acetylcholine sensitivity of pancreatic beta-cells after vagotomy.

The chronic effects of removal of parasympathetic neural input to the pancreas on in vitro insulin secretion were assessed. Groups of Wistar and Long-Evans rats received total subdiaphragmatic vagotomy or sham operation. Four to ten weeks later, after the return of food intake and body weight in the vagotomized groups to values similar to the sham-operated groups, pancreatic islets were isolated and statically incubated with selected concentrations of glucose and acetylcholine.