SP Amarachintha et al. Hepatology 2022; 75: 89-103. Open Access: Biliary organoids uncover delayed epithelial development and barrier function in biliary atresia

This is a super cool article documenting a new human model for studying biliary atresia. The authors “generated biliary organoids from liver biopsies of infants with biliary atresia and normal and diseased controls…Organoids from biliary atresia are viable and have evidence of halted epithelial development. The induction of developmental markers, improved cell-cell junction, and decreased epithelial permeability by EGF and FGF2 identifies potential strategies to promote epithelial maturation and function.”

The authors note that delayed development of cholangiocytes impair barrier function and leave the liver susceptible to various insults which can trigger an inflammatory response with potential progression to obliteration of the bile ducts.

CW Wang et al. Hepatology 2022; 75: 5-12. Open Access: Outcomes of pregnancy in autoimmune hepatitis: A population-based study

Among 18,595,345 pregnancies, 935 (<0.001%) had AIH (60 with cirrhosis) and 120,100 (0.006%) had other CLD (845 with cirrhosis). Key findings:

• AIH was not associated with postpartum hemorrhage, maternal, or perinatal death
• AIH was associated with preterm births when compared with women without CLD (OR: 2.0)
• The odds of gestational diabetes (GDM) and hypertensive complications (pre-eclampsia, eclampsia, or hemolysis, elevated liver enzymes, low platelets) were significantly higher in AIH compared to other CLD (GDM: OR 2.2 and hypertensive complications: OR: 1.8) and also compared to no CLD in pregnancy (GDM: OR: 2.4 and  hypertensive complications: OR: 2.4)

SJ Wu et al. J Pediatr 2022; 240: 280-283. The Prevalence of Elevated Alanine Aminotransferase Levels Meeting Clinical Action Thresholds in Children with Obesity in Primary Care Practice

In this brief report, the authors identified 7.8% of children from a cross-sectional California cohort (n=12,945) with ALT >44 U/L and BMI in the 95% or higher (2012-2014). Males were twice as likely to have elevated ALT. Ethnicity rates were higher in hispanics, asians than white and black children (in males: 12%, 10.4%, 7.3% and 3.1%, respectively)

R Taubert et al. Hepatology 2022; 75: 13-27. Quantification of polyreactive immunoglobulin G facilitates the diagnosis of autoimmune hepatitis

Key findings: Polyreactive IgGs (pIgGs) are a common finding in untreated AIH and have “the highest overall accuracy for the distinction between AIH and non-AIH LD compared to the most common conventional autoantibodies.” In addition, in this study with 1568 adutls, pIgGs were present in “up to 88% of patients with seronegative AIH and in up to 71% of AIH patients with normal IgG levels. Under therapy, pIgG returns to background levels of non-AIH-LD.”