Cholestatic liver diseases result from impaired bile flow and are characterized by inflammation, atypical ductular proliferation, and fibrosis. The Wnt/β-catenin pathway plays a role in bile duct development, yet its role in cholestatic injury remains indeterminate. Liver-specific β-catenin knockout mice and wild-type littermates were subjected to cholestatic injury through bile duct ligation o...

Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) is an immune-related cholangiopathy characterized by biliary inflammation, cholestasis, and multifocal bile duct strictures. It associated with high rates of progression to end-stage liver disease as well a significant risk cholangiocarcinoma (CCA), gallbladder cancer, colorectal carcinoma. Currently, no effective medical treatment impact on the overall surv...

Annually, there are over 2 million incidents of traumatic brain injury (TBI) and treatment options are non-existent. While many TBI studies have focused on the brain, peripheral contributions involving the digestive and immune systems are emerging as factors involved in the various symptomology associated with TBI. We hypothesized that TBI would alter hepatic function, including bile acid syste...

Liver fluke disease is a chronic parasitic inflammatory disease of the bile ducts. Infection occurs through ingestion of fluke-infested, fresh-water raw fish. The most well-known species that cause human infection are Clonorchis sinensis, Opisthorchis viverrini and Opisthorchis felineus. Adult flukes settle in the small intrahepatic bile ducts and then they live there for 20-30 years. The long-...

Bile acids are ligands for the nuclear hormone receptor, farnesoid X receptor (FXR). The bile acid-FXR interaction regulates bile acid synthesis, transport, and cholesterol metabolism. Recently, bile acid-FXR regulation has been reported to play an integral role in both hepatic and intestinal inflammation, and in atherosclerosis. In this study, we found that FXR knockout mice had more disease s...

This study clarified the role of Cygb, the fourth globin in mammals originally discovered in rat hepatic stellate cells (HSCs), in cholestatic liver disease. Bile duct ligation (BDL) augmented inflammatory reactions as revealed by increased infiltrating neutrophils, CD68+-macrophages, and chemokine expression in Cygb-/- mice. In these mice, impairment of bile canalicular indicated by the loss o...

Choledochal cysts are a rare disease, with an incidence in western countries of 1 in 100 000–150 000 births. The rate is considerably higher in Asian populations, where the reported incidence is 1 in 1000 births. The exact etiology is still unknown, although they predominantly affect females with a ratio of 4:1. According to the Todani classification, the distribution of the different types of ...

BACKGROUND Spontaneous perforation of the bile duct in adults is very rare, particularly in cases accompanied by retroperitoneal biloma. We report a patient with retroperitoneal biloma due to a spontaneous perforation of the left hepatic duct. CASE REPORT An 82-year-old man was admitted to our institution with abdominal pain and a high fever. He had tenderness at the epi-mesogastrium. Compute...

AIM To evaluate cholangioscopy in addition to endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) for management of biliary complications after liver transplantation (LT). METHODS Twenty-six LT recipients with duct-to-duct biliary reconstruction who underwent ERCP for suspected biliary complications between April and December 2016 at the university hospital of Muenster were consecutively en...

Peritonitis is inflammation of the peritoneal cavity. It may be primary (e.g., hematogenous infection of the peritoneum as in feline infectious peritonitis) or secondary (i.e., resulting from chemical or septic contamination of the peritoneal cavity) and may be generalized (i.e., diffuse) or localized (i.e., only a small portion of the abdomen is involved). Chemical peritonitis is caused by the...