Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Pathophysiol. Nov 15, 2015; 6(4): 90-98
Published online Nov 15, 2015. doi: 10.4291/wjgp.v6.i4.90
Alcoholic hepatitis: The pivotal role of Kupffer cells
Duminda B Suraweera, Ashley N Weeratunga, Robert W Hu, Stephen J Pandol, Richard Hu
Duminda B Suraweera, Department of Medicine, Olive View-UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA 91342, United States
Ashley N Weeratunga, Creighton University School of Medicine, Omaha, NE 68102, United States
Robert W Hu, College of Arts and Sciences, the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, United States
Robert W Hu, Stephen J Pandol, Department of Gastroenterology and Biomedical Sciences, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA 90048, United States
Richard Hu, Department of Gastroenterology, Olive View-UCLA Medical Center and David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 91342, United States
Author contributions: Suraweera DB designed the project, reviewed the articles and wrote the paper; Weeratunga AN and Hu RW reviewed the articles and analyzed data; Pandol SJ edited and reviewed the articles; Hu R contributed to developing the concept, editing and reviewing the article.
Conflict-of-interest statement: None of the authors of this paper have any conflict of interest to declare.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Richard Hu, MD, Department of Gastroenterology, Olive View-UCLA Medical Center and David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, 14445 Olive View Dr., 2B-182, Los Angeles, CA 91342, United States. richardhu@mednet.ucla.edu
Telephone: +1-818-3643205 Fax: +1-818-3644573
Received: May 26, 2015
Peer-review started: May 27, 2015
First decision: July 3, 2015
Revised: July 27, 2015
Accepted: September 7, 2015
Article in press: September 8, 2015
Published online: November 15, 2015
Processing time: 174 Days and 22.2 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: In this editorial we provide critical comments on the pivotal role of Kupffer cells on the development of alcoholic hepatitis with a focus on the pro-inflammatory as well as the anti-inflammatory pathways. We propose that the anti-inflammatory pathway should be further explored as a potential alternative for novel treatment strategies. This editorial is significant as it provides a platform for the future basic and clinical research in elucidating the pathogenesis and developing the management strategies of this common clinical pathology - alcoholic hepatitis.