PURPOSE Childhood obesity is associated with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), and it has become one of the most common causes of childhood chronic liver diseases which significant as a cause of liver related mortality and morbidity in children in the United States. The development of simpler and easier clinical indices for medical practice is needed to identify advanced hepatic fibrosi...

Chronic liver disease is a world-wide problem that causes progressive hepatic fibrosis as a hallmark of progressive injury. At present, the gold standard for diagnosing hepatic fibrosis is liver biopsy, which is an invasive method with many limitations, including questionable accuracy and risks of complications. MR elastography (MRE), a phase-contrast MRI technique for quantitatively assessing ...

Mice lacking A(1) adenosine receptors (A(1)AR) were thought to be protected from developing fatty liver; however, the contribution of A(1)AR to hepatic fibrosis has not been explored. Here we found that the expression of A(1)AR was decreased in fibrotic liver induced by chronic carbon tetrachloride (CCl(4)) but increased in that induced by bile duct ligation (BDL). Therefore, we examined whethe...

Hepatic fibrosis is a common response to virtually all forms of chronic liver injury independent of the etiologic agent. Despite the relatively large population of patients suffering from hepatic fibrosis and cirrhosis, no efficient and well-tolerated drugs are available for the treatment of this disorder. The lack of efficient treatment options is at least partly because the underlying cellula...

BACKGROUND & AIMS Resveratrol, a polyphenol found in a variety of fruits, exerts a wide range of beneficial effects on the endothelium, regulates multiple vasoactive substances and decreases oxidative stress, factors involved in the pathophysiology of portal hypertension. Our study aimed at evaluating the effects of resveratrol on hepatic and systemic hemodynamics, hepatic endothelial dysfuncti...

T helper 9 (Th9) cells, a recently recognized Th cell subset, are involved in autoimmune diseases. We aimed to investigate the role of Th9/interleukin-9 (IL-9) in the pathogenesis of hepatic fibrosis. Th9 and Th17 cells were quantified in chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients with hepatic fibrosis, HBV-associated liver cirrhosis (LC) patients and healthy controls (HC). The percentages of Th9 and T...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Although percutaneous liver biopsy (PLB) is the gold standard for staging hepatic fibrosis in hemodialysis patients with chronic hepatitis C (CHC) before renal transplantation or antiviral therapy, concerns exist about serious postbiopsy complications. Using transient elastography (TE, Fibroscan(®)) to predict the severity of hepatic fibrosis has not been prospectively...

USA 1999;96:12719-24. 16 Bataller R, Brenner D. Hepatic stellate cells as a target for the treatment of liver fibrosis. Seminars in Liver Disease 2001;21:437-51. 17 Benyon RC, Arthur MJP. Extracellular matrix degradation and the role of hepatic stellate cells. Seminars in Liver Disease 2001;21:373-84. 18 Benyon RC, Iredale JP, Goddard S, Winwood PJ, Arthur MJP. Expression of tissue inhibitor of...

BACKGROUND The clinical features associated with liver disease in patients with advanced heart failure are poorly defined. We investigated the histopathologic spectrum of liver disease in a contemporary population with heart failure to identify the clinical correlates of hepatic fibrosis. METHODS AND RESULTS We identified 61 patients with advanced heart failure undergoing evaluation for ventr...

• The extent of hepatic fibrosis in patients with chronic liver disease is associated with the risk of hepatic morbidity and mortality via the development of portal hypertension and liver cancer. • Ideal features of a non-invasive test of hepatic fibrosis include simplicity, reproducibility, accuracy, association with disease severity, improvement with therapy, association with clinical outcome...