Surgeons at the University Hospitals Leuven have used a new technique for two recent liver transplants: in both cases the organ was preserved prior transplantation in a device that mimics the environment of that in the human body, making sure the liver stays ‘healthier’. The device can even assess and improve the quality of the liver.
40 percent of people in the EU suffer from non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, a disease which is becoming increasingly more frequent as a result of diabetes and excess weight in an affluent society.
Ask about UltraFast ultrasound and you might expect a technical answer explaining why the ultrasound is faster. However, for Stéphanie Franchi-Abella MD, fast means just fast, an ultra-quick acquisition she can take of a squirming, agitated new-born in the blink of an eye. ‘These babies are small and breathing rapidly, the organs are moving fast in the image and it’s sometimes difficult to…
Scientists from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and the Medical Faculty in Mannheim at Heidelberg University are searching for new approaches to prevent liver fibrosis. They have identified a surface molecule on special liver cells called stellate cells as a potential target for interfering with this process. When the researchers turned off the receptor, this led to reduced liver…
Researchers at the Hubrecht Institute and the University Medical Center (UMC) Utrecht successfully developed a culturing system for human liver stem cells as well as stem cells from pancreatic cancer. They describe the development of these culturing systems in two articles in this week’s edition of Cell magazine.
At least 60% of liver lesions can be characterised purely by ultrasound. Screening and examinations of supposedly healthy patients often result in an accidental discovery of liver lesions. According to Dr Antonius Schuster MD MBA, Head of the Department of Radiology at the LKH Bregenz, (Vorarlberg). ‘The prevalence of such changes is around 20% of patients examined’. Depending on a…
Until recently liver biopsies were performed to stage hepatic fibrosis in order to identify the suitable therapy. ‘Since any intervention in the human body is associated with risks – haemorrhage and infection for example – we have long been looking for an alternative method to determine liver tissue elasticity. Today shear wave elastography is exactly such a method,’ says Professor…
A transplant team at a Birmingham hospital has achieved a world first after resuscitating a liver that would have previously been considered unviable.
Over the next few years, the University Medical Center (UMC) Utrecht and Quirem Medical will be working closely together to maximize the benefits of using holmium microspheres to treat liver cancer patients worldwide.
In a series of studies involving 140 American men and women with liver tumors, researchers at Johns Hopkins have used specialized 3-D MRI scans to precisely measure living and dying tumor tissue to quickly show whether highly toxic chemotherapy – delivered directly through a tumor’s blood supply – is working.
Medicine is not immune to prejudices. In the past, the ‘fatty liver’ diagnosis was often accompanied by the hasty conclusion that the problem was surely caused by alcohol abuse.
Japanese scientists have cracked open a freaky new chapter in the sci-fi-meets-stem-cells era. A group in Yokohama reported it has grown a primitive liver in a petri dish using a person's skin cells.
The hepatocellular carcinoma is the sixth most frequent cause of cancer worldwide, explained Dr Bruno Sangro at ECR, and it is the third most frequent cause of death due to cancer.
Across the globe, up to 400 million people carry the hepatitis B virus, and more than 180 million – approximately 400,000 in France – are infected with the hepatitis C virus.
Simultaneous surgical successes open new perspectives for multiple transplants
A record number of liver transplants have been carried out by the Birmingham Liver Teams at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham and Birmingham Children’s Hospital.
CT-ultrasound fusion optimises planning and monitoring of ablations in interventional radiology.
For his Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen Honorary Lecture at ECR 2011, Professor Richard Baron MD, from the Radiology Department at the University of Chicago, USA, focused on Detecting liver tumours: the search for the Holy Grail. Why does he compare this aim with that of the medieval knights?
Devised by the European Liver Test group, the new, non-invasive Enhanced Liver Fibrosis (ELF) test on Siemens ADVIA Centaur Immunoassay Systems can identify, in under an hour, bloodbased biomarkers to detect the amount of fibrosis in the liver.
EH Paris correspondent Annick Chapoy, reports on a French study that confirms the relevance of a drug with a long history in the management of other diseases
A Birmingham hospital is pioneering a new procedure which aims to maintain and improve the quality of organs for transplantation in recipients on the waiting list.
People who donate a portion of their livers for transplant to a relative or friend whose liver is failing can generally expect to live long, healthy lives and recover safely from the donation surgery, Johns Hopkins researchers have found.
Susanne Werner reports on the views and revelations of international researchers gathered to deliberate the future potential of reprogrammed human adult stem cells and personalised medical treatments
The European Research Council (ERC) has earmarked about €2.5 mio. to fund the research being conducted by gastroenterologist and biochemist Professor Dr. Dr. Detlef Schuppan at Mainz University Medical Center. Professor Schuppan is a specialist in liver diseases ranging from fibrosis to cirrhosis (the terminal stage of fibrosis) to hepatic cancer.