Scholars@Duke
Cynthia Ann Moylan

Cynthia Ann Moylan

Associate Professor of Medicine
Medicine, Gastroenterology
cynthia.moylan@duke.edu
Duke Box 3256, 595 LaSalle GSRB 1, Durham, NC 27710
Duke South Clinic, 40 Medicine Circle, Room 0350, Durham, NC 27710

Selected Publications

Disparities in Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatotic Liver Disease Prevalence, Diagnosis, Treatment, and Outcomes: A Narrative Review.

Journal Article Dig Dis Sci · November 19, 2024 BACKGROUND: Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), formerly known as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality, and health disparities have been shown to influence disease burden. AI ... Full text Link to item Cite

Intervening on Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatotic Liver Disease in Latino/a and Black Patients with Diabetes: A Feasibility Pilot.

Journal Article Diabetes Ther · November 2024 INTRODUCTION: Patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D), particularly those from historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups, are at high risk of poor outcomes from metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD). Evidence-based managemen ... Full text Link to item Cite

Osteopontin Promotes Cholangiocyte Secretion of Chemokines to Support Macrophage Recruitment and Fibrosis in MASH.

Journal Article Liver Int · October 18, 2024 BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Osteopontin (OPN) promotes the ductular reaction and is a major driver of chronic liver disease (CLD) progression. Although CLD is characterised by the accumulation of inflammatory cells including macrophages around the peri-portal reg ... Full text Link to item Cite

The Liver Cirrhosis Network Cohort Study: Cirrhosis Definition, Study Population, and Endpoints.

Journal Article Am J Gastroenterol · July 17, 2024 INTRODUCTION: One of the primary goals of the Liver Cirrhosis Network (LCN) is to develop a cohort study to better understand and predict the risk of hepatic decompensation and other clinical and patient-reported outcomes among patients with Child A cirrho ... Full text Link to item Cite

Racial Disparities in Evidence-Based Management of Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatotic Liver Disease in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes.

Journal Article Endocr Pract · July 2024 OBJECTIVE: To assess frequency of evidence-based management (EBM) of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D), and to examine for racial/ethnic disparities in the receipt of EBM. METHODS: We co ... Full text Link to item Cite

Racial and ethnic disparities in metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease

Journal Article Metabolism and Target Organ Damage · January 1, 2024 Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) has an increasing prevalence, morbidity, and mortality both within the United States and globally. Here, we review newer evidence demonstrating racial and ethnic disparities that exist in the ... Full text Cite

Fatty Liver Disease: Enter the Metabolic Era.

Journal Article Curr HIV/AIDS Rep · December 2023 PURPOSE OF REVIEW: The goal of this review is to summarize the recent literature linking HIV to metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD). This is a pressing issue due to the scale of the MASLD epidemic and the urgent need for preven ... Full text Link to item Cite

Prescribing of evidence-based diabetes pharmacotherapy in patients with metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis.

Journal Article BMJ Open Diabetes Res Care · November 29, 2023 INTRODUCTION: Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) is highly prevalent in type 2 diabetes (T2D). Pioglitazone and glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RA) are medications used in T2D that can resolve MASH and should be conside ... Full text Link to item Cite

Updates in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

Journal Article Clin Liver Dis (Hoboken) · November 2023 Full text Link to item Cite

AHRR Hypomethylation mediates the association between maternal smoking and metabolic profiles in children.

Journal Article Hepatol Commun · October 1, 2023 BACKGROUND: Tobacco smoking during pregnancy is associated with metabolic dysfunction in children, but mechanistic insights remain limited. Hypomethylation of cg05575921 in the aryl hydrocarbon receptor repressor (AHRR) gene is associated with in utero tob ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Serum Metabolites Are Associated With HFpEF in Biopsy-Proven Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease.

Journal Article J Am Heart Assoc · July 18, 2023 Background Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) share common risk factors, including obesity and diabetes. They are also thought to be mechanistically linked. The aim of this study was to defin ... Full text Link to item Cite

Safety, tolerability, and efficacy of maralixibat in adults with primary sclerosing cholangitis: Open-label pilot study.

Journal Article Hepatol Commun · June 1, 2023 BACKGROUND: Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) is frequently associated with pruritus, which significantly impairs quality of life. Maralixibat is a selective ileal bile acid transporter (IBAT) inhibitor that lowers circulating bile acid (BA) levels and ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

MRI Quantification of Placebo Effect in Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis Clinical Trials.

Journal Article Radiology · March 2023 Background Several early-phase clinical trials for the treatment of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) use liver fat content as measured with the MRI-derived proton density fat fraction (PDFF) for a primary outcome. These trials have shown relative reduct ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Challenges and barriers in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) surveillance for patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)

Journal Article Hepatoma Research · January 1, 2023 The proportion of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cases due to NAFLD is expected to increase, paralleling the rise in NAFLD due to the obesity epidemic. Early detection is critical, as it potentially enables curative treatment. Current guidelines recommend ... Full text Cite

Alterations in DNA methylation associate with fatty liver and metabolic abnormalities in a multi-ethnic cohort of pre-teenage children.

Journal Article Epigenetics · November 2022 Non-Alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the leading cause of chronic liver disease in children. Epigenetic alterations, such as through DNA methylation (DNAm), may link adverse childhood exposures and fatty liver and provide non-invasive methods for i ... Full text Link to item Cite

Racial disparities in liver cancer: Evidence for a role of environmental contaminants and the epigenome.

Journal Article Front Oncol · 2022 Liver cancer incidence has tripled since the early 1980s, making this disease one of the fastest rising types of cancer and the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. In the US, incidence varies by geographic location and race, with the hi ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Underrecognition of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease in Poorly Controlled Diabetes: A Call to Action in Diabetes Care.

Journal Article J Endocr Soc · December 1, 2021 Individuals with type 2 diabetes (T2DM) are at high risk for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), and evidence suggests that poor glycemic control is linked to heightened risk of progressive NAFLD. We conducted an observational study based on data fro ... Full text Link to item Cite

Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease and Risk of Heart Failure Among Medicare Beneficiaries.

Journal Article J Am Heart Assoc · November 16, 2021 Background Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and heart failure (HF) are increasing in prevalence. The independent association between NAFLD and downstream risk of HF and HF subtypes (HF with preserved ejection fraction and HF with reduced ejection f ... Full text Link to item Cite

Relationship of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease and Heart Failure With Preserved Ejection Fraction.

Journal Article JACC Basic Transl Sci · November 2021 Although there is an established bidirectional relationship between heart failure with reduced ejection fraction and liver disease, the association between heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) and liver diseases, such as nonalcoholic fatt ... Full text Link to item Cite

Glycemic Control Predicts Severity of Hepatocyte Ballooning and Hepatic Fibrosis in Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease.

Journal Article Hepatology · September 2021 BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Whether glycemic control, as opposed to diabetes status, is associated with the severity of NAFLD is open for study. We aimed to evaluate whether degree of glycemic control in the years preceding liver biopsy predicts the histological ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Dysregulation of the ESRP2-NF2-YAP/TAZ axis promotes hepatobiliary carcinogenesis in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

Journal Article Journal of hepatology · September 2021 Background & aimsNon-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), the hepatic correlate of the metabolic syndrome, is a major risk factor for hepatobiliary cancer (HBC). Although chronic inflammation is thought to be the root cause of all these diseases ... Full text Cite

Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease Risk Factors Affect Liver-Related Outcomes After Direct-Acting Antiviral Treatment for Hepatitis C.

Journal Article Dig Dis Sci · July 2021 INTRODUCTION: In hepatitis C (HCV) patients, obesity and/or diabetes may increase the risk of liver-related outcomes. We aimed to determine whether diabetes and/or obesity are associated with adverse outcomes in direct-acting antiviral (DAA)-treated HCV pa ... Full text Link to item Cite

REPLY.

Journal Article Hepatology · April 2021 Full text Link to item Cite

Serum Bile Acid, Vitamin E, and Serotonin Metabolites Are Associated With Future Liver-Related Events in Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease.

Journal Article Hepatol Commun · April 2021 Identifying patients at higher risk for poor outcomes from nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) remains challenging. Metabolomics, the comprehensive measurement of small molecules in biological samples, has the potential to reveal novel noninvasive bio ... Full text Link to item Cite

Proton pump inhibitor usage reduces sustained viral response rates for veterans with HIV/HCV coinfection on ledipasvir/sofosbuvir: a real-world study from a multicentre VA cohort.

Journal Article J Viral Hepat · April 2021 Previous studies have reported an association of proton pump inhibitor (PPI) use and decreased sustained viral response rate (SVR) in patients taking ledipasvir/sofosbuvir (LDV/SOF). The relationship between PPI usage and SVR is less clear in patients with ... Full text Link to item Cite

Sex and Menopause Modify the Effect of Single Nucleotide Polymorphism Genotypes on Fibrosis in NAFLD.

Journal Article Hepatol Commun · April 2021 The development of fibrosis in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is influenced by genetics, sex, and menopausal status, but whether genetic susceptibility to fibrosis is influenced by sex and reproductive status is unclear. Our aim was to identify m ... Full text Link to item Cite

Association of liver fibrosis risk scores with clinical outcomes in patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction: findings from TOPCAT.

Journal Article ESC Heart Fail · April 2021 AIMS: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease leads to progressive liver fibrosis and appears to be a frequent co-morbid disease in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF). It is well known that liver fibrosis severity predicts future liver-relate ... Full text Link to item Cite

Introduction to the Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease Special Issue

Journal Article Clinical Liver Disease · January 1, 2021 Full text Cite

Metabolomic Signature as a Predictor of Liver Disease Events in Patients With HIV/HCV Coinfection.

Journal Article J Infect Dis · November 13, 2020 BACKGROUND: Advanced liver disease due to hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a leading cause of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-related morbidity and mortality. There remains a need to develop noninvasive predictors of clinical outcomes in persons with HIV/HCV ... Full text Link to item Cite

Transplant Outcomes in Older Patients With Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis Compared to Alcohol-related Liver Disease and Hepatitis C.

Journal Article Transplantation · June 2020 BACKGROUND: Patients with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) are waitlisted at older ages than individuals with other liver diseases, but the effect of age on liver transplantation (LT) outcomes in this population and whether it differs from other etiolog ... Full text Link to item Cite

Increased Glutaminolysis Marks Active Scarring in Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis Progression.

Journal Article Cell Mol Gastroenterol Hepatol · 2020 BACKGROUND & AIMS: Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) occurs in the context of aberrant metabolism. Glutaminolysis is required for metabolic reprograming of hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) and liver fibrogenesis in mice. However, it is unclear how changes i ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Resmetirom (MGL-3196) for the treatment of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis: a multicentre, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase 2 trial.

Journal Article Lancet · November 30, 2019 BACKGROUND: Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is characterised by hepatic steatosis, inflammation, hepatocellular injury, and progressive liver fibrosis. Resmetirom (MGL-3196) is a liver-directed, orally active, selective thyroid hormone receptor-β agon ... Full text Link to item Cite

Unclear Statement.

Journal Article JAMA · July 23, 2019 Full text Link to item Cite

"Too Female" for Liver Transplantation.

Journal Article Hepatology · December 2018 Full text Link to item Cite

Association Between Magnetic Resonance Imaging-Proton Density Fat Fraction and Liver Histology Features in Patients With Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease or Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis.

Journal Article Gastroenterology · November 2018 BACKGROUND & AIMS: Patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) or nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) often require histologic assessment via liver biopsy. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-based methods for measuring liver triglycerides based on ... Full text Link to item Cite

Serum Interleukin-8, Osteopontin, and Monocyte Chemoattractant Protein 1 Are Associated With Hepatic Fibrosis in Patients With Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease.

Journal Article Hepatol Commun · November 2018 The severity of hepatic fibrosis is the primary predictor of liver-related morbidity and mortality in patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Unfortunately, noninvasive serum biomarkers for NAFLD-associated fibrosis are limited. We analyzed ... Full text Link to item Cite

Correction to: Identifying Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease Advanced Fibrosis in the Veterans Health Administration.

Journal Article Dig Dis Sci · October 2018 The original version of the article unfortunately contained errors in Table 3, Risk Factor column headings "Age > 50 (n = 115)," "Age > 50-64 (n = 154)," and "Age > 65 + (n = 60)." ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Identifying Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease Advanced Fibrosis in the Veterans Health Administration.

Journal Article Dig Dis Sci · September 2018 BACKGROUND: Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common cause of chronic liver disease. Severe NAFLD with advanced fibrosis results in substantial morbidity and mortality. Associated with metabolic syndrome, NAFLD is often initially clinica ... Full text Link to item Cite

Whole-Exome Sequencing Study of Extreme Phenotypes of NAFLD.

Journal Article Hepatol Commun · September 2018 Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a heterogeneous disease with highly variable outcomes. Patients with simple steatosis typically experience a benign course, whereas those with more advanced liver injury, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), and ... Full text Link to item Cite

Risk factors for biopsy-proven advanced non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in the Veterans Health Administration.

Journal Article Aliment Pharmacol Ther · January 2018 BACKGROUND: With its increasing incidence, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is of particular concern in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). AIMS: To evaluate risk factors for advanced fibrosis in biopsy-proven NAFLD in the VHA, to identify pa ... Full text Link to item Cite

Branched chain amino acid transaminase 1 (BCAT1) is overexpressed and hypomethylated in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease who experience adverse clinical events: A pilot study.

Journal Article PLoS One · 2018 BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Although the burden of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) continues to increase worldwide, genetic factors predicting progression to cirrhosis and decompensation in NAFLD remain poorly understood. We sought to determine wh ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Epigenetics of Childhood Obesity

Journal Article Current Pediatrics Reports · September 1, 2017 Purpose of Review: We sought to describe how epigenetics, the study of potentially heritable changes in gene expression that do not involve changes in the underlying DNA sequence, has promise in the development of effective preventive interventions for chi ... Full text Cite

Reply to Kim et al.

Journal Article Am J Gastroenterol · May 2017 Full text Link to item Cite

NAFLD is associated with methylation shifts with relevance for the expression of genes involved in lipoprotein particle composition.

Journal Article Biochim Biophys Acta Mol Cell Biol Lipids · March 2017 Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is characterized by the accumulation of triglycerides, cholesterol and toxic free fatty acids and is related to low vitamin D levels. In an analysis of specific gene sets we elucidate to what extent NAFLD associate ... Full text Link to item Cite

Vitamin D is Not Associated With Severity in NAFLD: Results of a Paired Clinical and Gene Expression Profile Analysis.

Journal Article Am J Gastroenterol · November 2016 OBJECTIVES: The pathogenesis of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is complex. Vitamin D (VitD) has been implicated in NAFLD pathogenesis because it has roles in immune modulation, cell differentiation and proliferation, and regulation of inflammatio ... Full text Link to item Cite

Role of patient factors, preferences, and distrust in health care and access to liver transplantation and organ donation.

Journal Article Liver Transpl · July 2016 Despite major improvements in access to liver transplantation (LT), disparities remain. Little is known about how distrust in medical care, patient preferences, and the origins shaping those preferences contribute to differences surrounding access. We perf ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

DNA Methylation: Basic Principles

Chapter · July 1, 2016 DNA methylation is a stable yet reversible epigenetic modification that regulates gene expression. New technologies have provided deep insights into the distribution and function of DNA methylation in humans, including the Human Roadmap Epigenome Project t ... Full text Cite

Liver Transplantation for Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease: Role of Bariatric Surgery for Comorbid Obesity

Journal Article Journal of Advanced Nutrition and Human Metabolism · June 23, 2016 Full text Cite

DNA Methylation: Basic Principles

Chapter · June 21, 2016 The intent of this book is to provide a stand-alone comprehensive volume that will cover all human systems relevant to epigenetic maladies and all major aspects of medical epigenetics. ... Cite

A targeted analysis reveals relevant shifts in the methylation and transcription of genes responsible for bile acid homeostasis and drug metabolism in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

Journal Article BMC Genomics · June 14, 2016 BACKGROUND: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is associated with a high risk for liver cirrhosis and cancer. Recent studies demonstrate that NAFLD significantly impacts on the genome wide methylation and expression reporting top hit genes to be ass ... Full text Link to item Cite

Veterans health administration hepatitis B testing and treatment with anti-CD20 antibody administration.

Journal Article World J Gastroenterol · May 21, 2016 AIM: To evaluate pretreatment hepatitis B virus (HBV) testing, vaccination, and antiviral treatment rates in Veterans Affairs patients receiving anti-CD20 Ab for quality improvement. METHODS: We performed a retrospective cohort study using a national repos ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease: Key Considerations Before and After Liver Transplantation.

Journal Article Dig Dis Sci · May 2016 Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common etiology of chronic liver disease in developed countries and is on trajectory to become the leading indication for liver transplantation in the USA and much of the world. Patients with NAFLD cirrh ... Full text Link to item Cite

Pleiotrophin regulates the ductular reaction by controlling the migration of cells in liver progenitor niches.

Journal Article Gut · April 2016 OBJECTIVE: The ductular reaction (DR) involves mobilisation of reactive-appearing duct-like cells (RDC) along canals of Hering, and myofibroblastic (MF) differentiation of hepatic stellate cells (HSC) in the space of Disse. Perivascular cells in stem cell ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Systematic transcriptome analysis reveals elevated expression of alcohol-metabolizing genes in NAFLD livers.

Journal Article J Pathol · March 2016 Obese animals and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) patients exhibit elevated blood alcohol, suggesting potential contributions of alcohol metabolism to the development of NAFLD. Liver gene expression in patients with biopsy-proven mild (N = 40) an ... Full text Link to item Cite

Vitamin B5 and N-Acetylcysteine in Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis: A Preclinical Study in a Dietary Mouse Model.

Journal Article Dig Dis Sci · January 2016 BACKGROUND: Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the number one cause of chronic liver disease and second indication for liver transplantation in the Western world. Effective therapy is still not available. Previously we showed a critical role for c ... Full text Link to item Cite

Gender-based disparities in access to and outcomes of liver transplantation.

Journal Article World J Hepatol · March 27, 2015 Despite comprising 35% of transplants, the number of female transplant recipients has continued to decline. Accordingly, there is a growing attention to the issue of access to and outcomes of liver transplantation in women. The purpose of this review is to ... Full text Link to item Cite

Role of Fn14 in acute alcoholic steatohepatitis in mice.

Journal Article Am J Physiol Gastrointest Liver Physiol · February 15, 2015 TNF-like weak inducer of apoptosis (TWEAK) is a growth factor for bipotent liver progenitors that express its receptor, fibroblast growth factor-inducible 14 (Fn14), a TNF receptor superfamily member. Accumulation of Fn14(+) progenitors occurs in severe ac ... Full text Link to item Cite

Abstract 4117: Utilizing RNA aptamers for biomarker discovery in a novel cell culture system for hepatocellular carcinoma

Conference Cancer Research · October 1, 2014 AbstractIntroduction: Current serum biomarkers for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) lack the sensitivity and specificity to be effective screening tools. Aptamers are single-stranded RNA oligonucleotides that ... Full text Cite

Reply: To PMID 23913408.

Journal Article Hepatology · October 2014 Full text Link to item Cite

Hepatic gene expression profiles differentiate presymptomatic patients with mild versus severe nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

Journal Article Hepatology · February 2014 Featured Publication UNLABELLED: Clinicians rely upon the severity of liver fibrosis to segregate patients with well-compensated nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) into subpopulations at high- versus low-risk for eventual liver-related morbidity and mortality. We compare ... Full text Link to item Cite

Relationship between methylome and transcriptome in patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

Journal Article Gastroenterology · November 2013 Featured Publication BACKGROUND & AIMS: Cirrhosis and liver cancer are potential outcomes of advanced nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). It is not clear what factors determine whether patients will develop advanced or mild NAFLD, limiting noninvasive diagnosis and treat ... Full text Link to item Cite

Hedgehog controls hepatic stellate cell fate by regulating metabolism.

Journal Article Gastroenterology · November 2012 BACKGROUND & AIMS: The pathogenesis of cirrhosis, a disabling outcome of defective liver repair, involves deregulated accumulation of myofibroblasts derived from quiescent hepatic stellate cells (HSCs), but the mechanisms that control transdifferentiation ... Full text Link to item Cite

A pre-marketing ALT signal predicts post-marketing liver safety.

Journal Article Regul Toxicol Pharmacol · August 2012 Drug induced liver injury during drug development is evidenced by a higher incidence of serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) elevations in treated versus placebo populations and termed an "ALT signal". We sought to quantify whether an ALT signal in pre-mar ... Full text Link to item Cite

Epigenetic Regulation of Gene Expression in NAFLD

Conference GASTROENTEROLOGY · May 1, 2012 Link to item Cite

Osteopontin is induced by hedgehog pathway activation and promotes fibrosis progression in nonalcoholic steatohepatitis.

Journal Article Hepatology · January 2011 UNLABELLED: Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is a leading cause of cirrhosis. Recently, we showed that NASH-related cirrhosis is associated with Hedgehog (Hh) pathway activation. The gene encoding osteopontin (OPN), a profibrogenic extracellular matrix ... Full text Link to item Cite

Hedgehog signaling antagonist promotes regression of both liver fibrosis and hepatocellular carcinoma in a murine model of primary liver cancer.

Journal Article PLoS One · 2011 OBJECTIVE: Chronic fibrosing liver injury is a major risk factor for hepatocarcinogenesis in humans. Mice with targeted deletion of Mdr2 (the murine ortholog of MDR3) develop chronic fibrosing liver injury. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) emerges spontaneou ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Viral factors induce Hedgehog pathway activation in humans with viral hepatitis, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma.

Journal Article Lab Invest · December 2010 Hedgehog (Hh) pathway activation promotes many processes that occur during fibrogenic liver repair. Whether the Hh pathway modulates the outcomes of virally mediated liver injury has never been examined. Gene-profiling studies of human hepatocellular carci ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Leptin promotes the myofibroblastic phenotype in hepatic stellate cells by activating the hedgehog pathway.

Journal Article J Biol Chem · November 19, 2010 Trans-differentiation of quiescent hepatic stellate cells (Q-HSCs), which exhibit epithelial and adipocytic features, into myofibroblastic-HSC (MF-HSCs) is a key event in liver fibrosis. Culture models demonstrated that Hedgehog (Hh) pathway activation is ... Full text Link to item Cite

Activation of Rac1 promotes hedgehog-mediated acquisition of the myofibroblastic phenotype in rat and human hepatic stellate cells.

Journal Article Hepatology · July 2010 UNLABELLED: Hepatic accumulation of myofibroblastic hepatic stellate cells (MF-HSCs) is pivotal in the pathogenesis of cirrhosis. Two events are necessary for MF-HSCs to accumulate in damaged livers: transition of resident, quiescent hepatic stellate cells ... Full text Link to item Cite

Hedgehog pathway activation and epithelial-to-mesenchymal transitions during myofibroblastic transformation of rat hepatic cells in culture and cirrhosis.

Journal Article Am J Physiol Gastrointest Liver Physiol · December 2009 Featured Publication Myofibroblastic hepatic stellate cells (MF-HSC) are derived from quiescent hepatic stellate cells (Q-HSC). Q-HSC express certain epithelial cell markers and have been reported to form junctional complexes similar to epithelial cells. We have shown that Hed ... Full text Link to item Cite

Disparities in liver transplantation before and after introduction of the MELD score.

Journal Article JAMA · November 26, 2008 Featured Publication CONTEXT: In February 2002, the allocation system for liver transplantation became based on the Model for End-Stage Liver Disease (MELD) score. Before MELD, black patients were more likely to die or become too sick to undergo liver transplantation compared ... Full text Link to item Cite

Intersection of child abuse and children's exposure to domestic violence.

Journal Article Trauma Violence Abuse · April 2008 This review addresses research on the overlap in physical child abuse and domestic violence, the prediction of child outcomes, and resilience in children exposed to family violence. The authors explore current findings on the intersection of physical child ... Full text Link to item Cite

Predicting CD4 lymphocyte count

Journal Article AIDS research and human retroviruses · October 2007 Clinical criteria are recommended to select HIV-infected patients for initiation of antiretroviral therapy when CD4 lymphocyte testing is unavailable. We evaluated the performance characteristics of WHO staging criteria, anthropometrics, and simple laborat ... Cite

Predicting CD4 lymphocyte count <200 cells/mm(3) in an HIV type 1-infected African population.

Journal Article AIDS Res Hum Retroviruses · October 2007 Featured Publication Clinical criteria are recommended to select HIV-infected patients for initiation of antiretroviral therapy when CD4 lymphocyte testing is unavailable. We evaluated the performance characteristics of WHO staging criteria, anthropometrics, and simple laborat ... Full text Link to item Cite

Factors Influencing Participation in Hepatitis C Research Trials

Conference American Journal of Gastroenterology · September 2007 Full text Cite

Treatment of hepatitis C in special populations.

Journal Article Clin Liver Dis · November 2005 Featured Publication Treatment options for hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection have improved significantly in recent years, however, treatment recommendations came from large clinical trials of highly selected patient populations. HCV infection has increased prevalence in Africa ... Full text Link to item Cite