Lay Summary: A characteristic feature of autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) is an elevation of immunoglobulin G (IgG), which is therefore used as a major diagnostic criterion, as well as to monitor treatment response. Nevertheless, normal IgG does not preclude the diagnosis of AIH. Therefore, we herein assessed the features of patients with AIH and normal IgG in a large multicentre study. This study demonstrates that about 10% of all patients with AIH have normal IgG; these patients are indistinguishable from other patients with AIH with respect to biochemical markers, liver histology, disease severity and treatment response, but might represent a subgroup with a higher chance of remission after drug withdrawal.Lay Summary: Chronic hepatitis delta constitutes the most severe form of viral hepatitis. There is limited data on the mechanism involved in hepatitis delta virus (HDV)-induced liver pathology. Our data indicate that a cytokine (TNF-α) and HDV antigens play a relevant role in HDV-induced liver damage.Lay Summary: Wilson's disease is a rare inherited disease that causes copper accumulation in the liver and brain and usually manifests during childhood, adolescence or early adulthood. We report the case of a 62-year-old who developed acute liver failure and was successfully treated with urgent liver transplantation. We discuss the outcomes of other late-onset cases of acute liver failure due to Wilson's disease in the literature and provide additional data from the UK Transplant Registry.Lay Summary: Hepatobiliary phase imaging is an approach that has recently been shown to discriminate between benign and malignant lesions in the liver. However, it was not known whether this imaging approach could be used effectively in patients with Budd-Chiari syndrome. Herein, we have shown that hepatobiliary phase imaging appears to be useful for differentiating between benign and malignant liver lesions in patients with Budd-Chiari syndrome.
Lay Summary: It is not well understood how having non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)-related cirrhosis affects a person's everyday wellbeing and quality of life. Some research has been done with patients who have early stages of liver disease but not people with cirrhosis. We found that patients with NAFLD-related cirrhosis tended to have poorer health than patients without cirrhosis. But there was not very much information from patients themselves and there were no tools or questionnaires just for this group of patients.Lay Summary: It has been shown that following long-term nucleos(t)ide analogue treatment for chronic hepatitis B, some patients have undetectable levels of viral DNA in their livers. We tested the results of withdrawing nucleos(t)ide analogue treatment in these patients and found that viral relapse could occur in patients with undetectable viral DNA. Further research is required to determine whether nucleos(t)ide analogue treatment can be discontinued in specific patients with chronic hepatitis B.
