The establishment of the Expanded Program on Immunization in 1992 has resulted in a substantial decline in the number of newly HBV-infected patients; however, the number of patients with alcoholic and nonalcoholic fatty liver diseases RAD001 mw is rising at an alarming rate. Liver cancer, one of the most deadly cancers, is the second-most common cancer in China. Approximately 383,000 people die from liver cancer every year in China, which accounts for 51% of the deaths from liver cancer worldwide. Over the past 10 years, China has made some significant efforts to shed its “leader in liver diseases” title by investing large amounts

of money in funding research, vaccines, and drug development for liver diseases and by recruiting many Western-trained hepatologists and scientists. Over the last two decades, hepatologists and scientists in China have made significant improvements in liver disease prevention, diagnosis, management, and therapy. They have been very active in liver disease research, as shown by the dramatic increase in the number of publications in Hepatology. Nevertheless, many challenges

remain that must be tackled collaboratively. In this review, we discuss the epidemiology and characteristics of liver diseases and liver-related research in China. (Hepatology 2014;60:2098–2107) “
“Aim:  Regulatory T (Treg) cells may play a pivotal role in the persistence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Therefore, we examined their frequency in peripheral blood from patients with HCV-positive selleck chemical chronic hepatitis (CH), cirrhosis (LC) and HCC. Methods:  Treg cells were identified as CD4+, CD25+ and FoxP3+ T lymphocytes using three-color

FACS. The frequency of Treg cells was expressed as a percentage of the total CD4+ T lymphocytes, and the phenotype of Treg cells was examined using CD45RA. check details Results:  Treg cells were significantly increased in CH (5.88 ± 0.19%, n = 76; P < 0.01), LC (6.10 ± 0.28%, n = 40; P < 0.001) and HCC (6.80 ± 0.30%, n = 57; P < 0.0001) compared to healthy control (5.13 ± 0.25%, n = 31). However, Treg cells were not increased with the progression of fibrosis or the grade of inflammations. Treg cells were slightly increased in early-stage HCC (6.91 ± 0.40%) compared with advanced-stage HCC (6.58 ± 0.39%), but these results were not statistically significant. In a serial examination, a distinct increase in Treg cells after local therapy for early-stage HCC was a hallmark of early recurrence. Most expanded Treg cells in HCC were CD45RA-, suggesting that a memory-type Treg population had differentiated in the periphery and not in the thymus. Conclusion:  We observed an increase in Treg cells in HCV-related chronic liver disease, particularly in HCC, and these cells were shown to be memory-type Treg cells.