Liver Disease News and Research

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The liver is one of the largest solid organs of the body. It is located in the upper right part of the abdomen. Most of the organ lies under cover of the rib cage.

Patients with liver disease may now access UCSD's new Nevada clinic

Patients in Nevada seeking care for liver disease may now access the university-level expertise of UC San Diego Health System's Center for Hepatobiliary Disease and Abdominal Transplantation.

25 Aug 2011

Scientists aim to tackle Hawaii's liver cancer problem with improved detection

Two scientists from the University of Hawaii Cancer Center and The Queen's Medical Center have received a five-year $2.3 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to develop novel methods that can better detect liver cancer through the joint analysis of gene expression and imaging data of the liver.

24 Aug 2011

Vertex receives Health Canada approval for INCIVEK to treat hepatitis C

Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated today announced that Health Canada has approved INCIVEK tablets for a broad group of people with genotype 1 chronic hepatitis C with compensated liver disease, including cirrhosis.

23 Aug 2011

Saffron promotes apoptosis and inhibits growth of cancerous cells

New research suggests that saffron provides a significant chemopreventive effect against liver cancer in animal models. When saffron was administered to rats with diethylnitrosamine (DEN)-induced liver cancer an inhibition of cell proliferation and stimulation of apoptosis was observed. Full findings appear in the September issue of Hepatology, a journal published by Wiley Blackwell on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases.

22 Aug 2011

Mount Sinai to begin largest study of personalized medicine in clinical care setting

Mount Sinai School of Medicine has been awarded a $3.4 million grant over four years from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to begin the largest study of its kind, in which a patient's genomic risk for disease is revealed in a lab, and then entered into an electronic medical record for use in determining treatment in the clinical care setting.

19 Aug 2011

Gene therapy cocktail can treat inherited diseases with 'misfolded' proteins

In a kind of molecular gymnastics, scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine have devised a gene therapy cocktail that has the potential to treat some inherited diseases associated with "misfolded" proteins.

16 Aug 2011

Galectin second quarter net loss increases to $3.9 million

Galectin Therapeutics Inc., the leading developer of therapeutics that target galectin proteins to treat fibrosis and cancer, today reported its financial results for the second quarter and first six months, ended June 30, 2011.

12 Aug 2011

Negative physiological changes may raise risk of type 2 diabetes

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 25 percent of Americans have inactive lifestyles and 75 percent do not meet the weekly exercise recommendations to maintain good health.

3 Aug 2011

Lifestyle factors of people with exceptional longevity

People who live to 95 or older are no more virtuous than the rest of us in terms of their diet, exercise routine or smoking and drinking habits, according to researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University.

3 Aug 2011

Life becomes harder after settlements for on-the-job back injuries

Financial and domestic problems for workers -- particularly those who are African-American, have lower incomes, or are younger than 35 -- get progressively worse in the years after they have settled claims for painful, on-the-job back injuries, a new Saint Louis University study finds.

2 Aug 2011

One in six older people likely to have abnormal liver test and die from all causes

One in six people over 75 are likely to have at least one abnormal liver test and those that have two or more are twice as likely to die from cancer and 17 times more likely to die from liver disease, according to research in the August issue of Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics.

2 Aug 2011

Cadence confirms FDA dosing recommendations for OFIRMEV

Cadence Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today confirmed that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved dosing recommendations for OFIRMEV (acetaminophen) injection remains 4,000 mg per day for adults and adolescents weighing at least 50 kg.

29 Jul 2011

WSU professor receives NIH grant for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease research

Kezhong Zhang, Ph.D., assistant professor of molecular medicine and genetics and of immunology and microbiology in the School of Medicine at Wayne State University, was awarded $1.7 million by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases of the National Institutes of Health to explore how molecular elements in the body regulate the development of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

29 Jul 2011

Hepatitis on the rise

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the battle is on to fight the rising numbers of hepatitis B cases. Medical experts are calling for global action to tackle the viruses that cause the liver disease hepatitis. The first worldwide estimates in drug users show 10 million have hepatitis C while 1.3 million have hepatitis B.

29 Jul 2011

Metabolic syndrome linked to increased risk of primary liver cancers

Incidence rates of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) have increased in the U.S. This population-based study publishing in the August issue of Hepatology, a journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, found that metabolic syndrome significantly increases risk of developing these primary liver cancers.

22 Jul 2011

Measures to reduce BMI could improve outcome for patients with cirrhosis

Researchers from the United States and Europe involved in an NIH-funded multicenter study have determined that increased body mass index (BMI) is an independent predictor of clinical decompensation in patients with compensated cirrhosis, independent of portal pressure and liver function.

22 Jul 2011

Galectin, University of Michigan enter collaboration to study role of Galectins in cardiovascular disease

Galectin Therapeutics Inc. today announced that it has entered into a research collaboration with Dr. Jose Jalife of the University of Michigan Medical School to better understand the relationship of Galectin-3 to cardiac fibrosis in chronic cardiac arrhythmias.

21 Jul 2011

Roche, Merck sign new non-exclusive agreement for HCV triple combination therapy

Merck, known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, announced today that it has signed a new non-exclusive agreement with Roche, through the companies' respective subsidiaries, for the global promotion, upon appropriate marketing approvals, of VICTRELIS (boceprevir) as part of a triple combination therapy regimen with peginterferon alfa and ribavirin.

21 Jul 2011

Millennium submits VELCADE sNDA to FDA to add OS data for previously untreated multiple myeloma

Millennium: The Takeda Oncology Company with its parent company Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited today announced the submission of a supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for VELCADE® (bortezomib) for injection to add overall survival data after a five-year follow up to the product label.

20 Jul 2011

Obesity in kids reaches extreme levels

According to a Victoria's top childhood obesity experts, toddlers are becoming so obese they need hospital treatment and 10-year-olds so overweight they risk heart disease. This comes from Dr Matt Sabin, co-head of the Royal Children's Hospital weight management clinic who labeled Victoria's obesity epidemic as extreme. He said he often saw three-year-olds weighing 35kg - more than double their healthy weight - and 15-year-olds tipping the scales at up to 200kg.

18 Jul 2011