Stay the hand of justice? Evaluating claims that war crimes trials do more harm than good

An enduring dilemma in war is whether and how to punish those responsible for war crimes. In this essay, we analyze the most frequent criticisms made by war crimes trial skeptics, including the claims that such trials endanger prospects for peace by encouraging enemies to continue fighting, that they achieve only “victors’ justice” rather than real justice, and that, in any event, they are unnecessary due to the existence of more effective and less costly alternatives. We conclude, in accordance with a “moderate retributivism,” that when carried out consistently with established law and procedure, and when not dramatically outweighed by concerns that trials will exacerbate ongoing or future conflicts, prosecutions are a legitimate, and sometimes necessary, response to violations of the laws of war and international criminal law more broadly

Total hepatectomy and liver transplant for hepatocellular adenomatosis and focal nodular hyperplasia.

Extensive hepatocellular adenomatosis (HA) and focal nodular hyperplasia (FNH) represent a proliferation of hepatic cells that occurs most frequently in women. These lesions are uncommon in the pediatric age group, accounting for 2% of pediatric hepatic tumors, and are extremely rare in males. The etiology of HA and FNH has been correlated with the use of oral contraceptives. We report to the best of our knowledge the first series of patients treated with OLTx for HA and FNH (five cases). All these patients had lesions involving at least 90% of the hepatic parenchyma and all underwent major hepatic surgery before OLTx because of life threatening complications. One patient died in the immediate postoperative period following retransplantation for primary non-function of the first OLTx. Four out of five patients are currently alive from 4.1 to 9.6 years after OLTx. Our results justify the use of OLTx for symptomatic patients with HA and FNH who cannot be treated with conventional hepatic resections

Can adenine nucleotides predict primary nonfunction of the human liver homograft?

Sixty-eight primary liver grafts were analyzed to see whether adenine nucleotides (AN: ATP, ADP, and AMP) or purine catabolites (PC: adenosine, inosine, hypoxanthine, and xanthine) of tissue or effluent can predict primary graft nonfunction. AN, PC, and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, oxidized form (NAD+) of the tissue before (pretransplant) and after graft reperfusion (post-transplant) and of the effluent were analyzed. The graft outcome was classified into two groups (group A: successful, n = 64; group B: primary nonfunctioning, n = 4). No significant differences were observed in pretransplant measurements between groups A and B, whereas ATP, ADP, total AN, total AN + total PC (T) and NAD+, in post-transplant tissues, were significantly higher in group A. Xanthine in the effluent was significantly higher in group B than in group A. ATP, ADP, total AN, T, and NAD+ in post-transplant tissue were significantly associated with primary graft nonfunction by logistic regression analysis

The adverse impact on liver transplantation of using positive cytotoxic crossmatch donors

Because of the liver graft's ability to resist cytotoxic antibody-mediated rejection, it has become dogma that the conventional transplant crossmatch used to avoid hyperacute rejection of other organs is irrelevant to the liver. We examined this hypothesis in a consecutive series of adult primary liver recipients treated with FK506 and low-dose steroids. Twenty-five of 231 (10.8%) patients received a liver from a cytotoxic-positive crossmatch donor (more than 50% of donor T lymphocytes were killed by dithiothre-itol-pretreated recipient serum). The outcome was compared with that of 50 negative crossmatch patients who had their transplantations just before and after the crossmatch positive cases. The one-year graft and patient survivals were 56% and 68%, for positive and 82% and 86% for negative crossmatch patients (P=0.004, P=0.03, respectively). The difference between patient and first graft survival was accounted for by retransplantation, which was 4 times more frequent in the positive-crossmatch cases. Histologically, failed allografts obtained at the time of retransplantation revealed a spectrum of pathologic findings related to vascular injury. This study showed a higher difficulty of intraoperative blood product management, a degraded prognosis, and a poorer average quality of ultimate graft function when liver transplantation was performed against positive cytotoxic crossmatches. In such patients for whom crossmatch-negative donors may never be found because of the broad extent and intensity of sensitization, special therapeutic strategies perioperatively must be evolved if results are to improve. © 1992 by Williams and Wilkins