§ Drs. Murphy and Parikh contributed equally and are co-senior authors Author contributions: Dr. Singal had full access to all of the data in the study and takes responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. Study concept and design (Singal and Parikh); Acquisition, analysis and interpretation of the data (all authors); Drafting of the manuscript (Singal); Critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content (all authors); Obtained funding (Singal, Parikh); Administrative, technical, and material support (Singal and Parikh); Study supervision (Singal) Conflicts of Interest: Amit Singal was on speakers bureau for Gilead, Bayer, and Bristol Meyers Squibb. He has served on advisory boards for Gilead, Abbvie, Bayer, Eisai, Wako Diagnostics, Roche, and Exact Sciences. He serves as a consultant to Bayer, Eisai, Roche, and Glycotest. He has received research funding from Gilead and Abbvie. Neil Mehta has received research funding from Wako Diagnostics. Anjana Pillai serves as a consultant and is on speakers bureau for Eisai and BTG. Jordan Feld has received research support from Gilead, Abbvie, Merck, and Janssen. Binu John has served on advisory boards for Eisai. Catherine Frenette is on speakers bureaus for Bayer, Bristol Meyers Squibb, Gilead, Merck, Abbvie, and Eisai. She served on advisory boards for Gilead, Eisai, and Wako. She served as a consultant for Bayer and Gilead. She received research funding from Bayer. Parvez Mantry is on speakers bureaus and served on advisory boards for Gilead, Abbvie, Bayer, BMS, Eisai, Merck, and BTG. He has received research funding from Gilead and Sirtex. Michael Leise has received research funding from Abbvie. Kalyan Ram Bhamidimarri serves as scientific advisory board member for Gilead, Merck, and Abbvie. He has received research funding from Gilead. Laura Kulik is on speakers bureau for Eisai, Gilead, and Dova. She serves as an advisory board member for BMS, Eisai, Bayer, Exelixis Reena Salgia is on speakers bureau for Bayer. She has served on advisory boards for Bayer, Eisai, and Exelixis. Sanjaya Satapathy has received research support from Gilead and Bayer.He has served on advisory boards or as a consultant for Abbvie and Gilead.

No abstract

BACKGROUND The long-term clinical outcomes in initial survivors with acute liver failure (ALF) are not well known. AIMS The aim of the current study is to provide an overview of the 2 year clinical outcomes amongst initial survivors and liver transplant (LT) recipients that were alive 3 weeks after enrollment in the Acute Liver Failure Study Group (ALFSG). METHODS Outcomes in adult ALFSG patients that were enrolled between 1998 and 2010 were reviewed. RESULTS 2-year patient survival was significantly higher in the 262 LT recipients (92.4%) compared to the 306 acetaminophen (APAP) spontaneous survivors (SS) (89.5%) and 200 non-APAP SS (75.5%) (p < 0.0001). The causes of death were similar in the 3 groups but the time to death was significantly longer in the LT recipients (p< 0.0001). Independent predictors of 2-year mortality in the APAP group were a high serum phosphate level and patient age (c-statistic = 0.65 (0.54, 0.76)), patient age and days from jaundice to ALF onset in the non-APAP group (c-statistic =0.69 (0.60, 0.78)), and patient age, days from jaundice, and higher coma grade in the LT recipients (c-statistic=0.74 (0.61, 0.87)). The LT recipients were significantly more likely to be employed and have a higher educational level (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS Two-year outcomes in initial survivors of ALF are generally good but non-APAP patients have a significantly lower survival which may relate to pre-existing medical co-morbidities. Spontaneous survivors with APAP overdose experience substantial morbidity during follow-up from ongoing psychiatric and substance abuse issues.

These data indicate that experimental steatohepatitis is a polygenic disease with genes determining ALT, liver weight, and liver fibrosis.

SUMMARY BackgroundPolymorphisms in the IL-28B region are a strong predictor of sustained virologic response (SVR) in individual studies of HCV genotype 1 patients receiving peginterferon (pegIFN) and ribavirin.