The liver is of central importance to the entire organism due to its diverse functions in metabolism, its ability to detoxify and excrete, the hepatic formation and inactivation of mediators, and its involvement in non-specific defence mechanisms. Thus, extrahepatic manifestations of liver disease are often decisive for the disease course.
In the last few years, knowledge about interaction between the liver and other organs or systems - e.g. kidneys, GI tract, skeleton, endocrine, haematopoietic and nervous sytems - has increased considerably. Thus many extrahepatic manifestations of...

The advent of molecular biology and recombinant DNA technology has profoundly changed contemporary medicine. These new scientific tools have made it possible to identify and understand pathological mechanisms at cellular, subcellular and molecular levels which has added previously unimaginable novel dimensions to the diagnosis, therapy and prevention of a rapidly increasing number of diseases of the liver and biliary system. The title of this book - Acute and Chronic Liver Diseases: Molecular Biology and Clinics - expresses this epochal progress in hepatology.
A series...

This volume comprises a series of original articles, updates and reviews on relevant topics in hepatology which were presented at a meeting in Freiburg im Breisgau to honour the 60th anniversary of Dr. Herbert Falk. Since 1967, Dr. Falk and the Falk Foundation have generously sponsored more than 40 congresses and symposia on liver diseases, held mostly in Freiburg, The Black Forest or in Basel, which have become milestones in the ex- change of scientific information in hepatology (see 'To Herbert Falk on his Sixtieth Birthday' in this volume). Many of these congresses and symposia have been...