About Liver Pathology

The study of Liver diseases is called Liver pathology. Liver diseases can be inherited or caused by a variety of factors that damage the liver, such as viruses and alcohol use. Liver diseases include the following conditions: Cirrhosis, Inflammation or hepatitis. Hepatic failure is a clinical syndrome caused by severe impairment of the liver cells, which can not maintain the vital metabolic, detoxifying and synthetic functions of the liver. The chemical manifestations of hepatic failure include: Jaundice and Encephalopathy. Alcohol is a direct hepatotoxic agent. Nutritional deficiency was thought to be the cause until recently. Alcohol is metabolized by the liver to acetaldehyde and acetate; it is oxidized through the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase. Another minor metabolic pathway is a microsomal ethanol oxidizing system (MEOS). There are 3 main manifestations of alcoholic liver disease: A) fatty liver, B) alcoholic hepatitis and C) cirrhosis. Primary biliary cirrhosis is a chronic progressive cholestatic disease that destroys intrahepatic bile ducts. It is an auto-immune disease. There are humoral and cellular immunity alterations; IgM is elevated and over 95% of patients have circulating antimitochondrial antibodies (AMA). They may also have circulating antinuclear, antithyroid, antiplatelets and antiribonucleoprotein antibodies.