Rallying to fight biliary atresia

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If we will ever successfully prevent biliary atresia–the number one indication for liver transplantation in children–a multicenter, multifaceted effort was deemed necessary by pediatric hepatologists; a consortium of 10 pediatric clinical research centers was established by the National Institutes of Health (www.med.umich.edu/borc/barc/). The individual centers and a data coordinating center will accelerate advances in the understanding, diagnosis, and clinical management of biliary atresia and related pediatric liver diseases. The consortium developed a prospective clinical database and a repository of tissue, serum, and plasma samples. The first report of the group is published in this issue of The Journal in which they analyze the outcomes of infants with biliary atresia born 1997-2000. This database will be a valuable resource in the quest to achieve the goals of the consortium and is clearly an important first step in our fight against this disease.