Liver Cirrhosis and Metabolism Flashcards
how does does the liver respond to injury
- it responds in a stereotypical way
- if you damage the liver over time inflammation and fibrosis results which leads to cirrhosis
name the causes of cirrhosis
• Alcohol • Fat / Metabolic Syndrome • Viral Hepatitis – HBV / HCV • Biliary Disease – PBC / PSC • Autoimmune • Metabolic – HC / Wilson’s / A1AT deficiency / amyloid
describe how liver disease progresses
- Primary Injury
- Inflammation – associated with ongoing liver cell injury and death
- Liver cell injury / death
- Fibrosis – liver ability to regenerate liver cells is impaired then you end up with fibrosis
what drives the progression of liver disease
Degree / number of insults Genetics Microbiome Environment Diet Drugs Methotrexate and NAFLD
How can you quantify how much cirrhosis is present
- do a liver biopsy
- use a stain for car tissue then categories it on how much scarring they have
is cirrhosis reversible
- yes
what are the functions of the liver
Protein synthesis & metabolism
- Clotting factors
- Urea breakdown
Bile production
- Elimination of bilirubin
- Hormone metabolism
- Drug metabolism
- Carbohydrate metabolism
- Lipid metabolism
- Immunological function
what is simple definition of liver disease
- this is loss of function of the liver
what do you use to diagnose cirrhosis
- History
- Symptoms and signs
- Blood
- Imaging
- Histology
what are the symptoms of liver cirrhosis
• None • Systemic – Weight loss – Tiredness – fatigue and impaired quality of life can be in chronic liver disease • Cholestatic – Pruritis – Pale stools/dark urine dark urine due to bilirubin increased production • Complications of underlying disease
what would you look for in a history of liver cirrhosis
- Alcohol history
- Travel – healthcare intervention over seas
- Illicit drug use
- Sexual
- Medication
- Professional
- Family history
- Co-morbidity
what are the signs of chronic liver disease
- Clubbing
- Gynaesmatic - failure to breakdown oestrogen
- Leuchonychia - pale nails
- Palmar erythema
- Spider naevi
- Hair loss
- Proximal wasting
- Scratch marks
- Xanthelasma
what two things from signs of chronic liver disease can make you more sure that liver disease is happening
palmar erythema and spider naevi
what two factors that assess liver function
- Albumin – low albumin
- INR (prothrombin time) – blood doesn’t clot as well as it should, liver makes Vitmain K clotting factors,
what are the factors that assess the stage of disease of the liver
- Platelet count
- ALT/AST
what is an important factor in assessing the stage of disease in the liver
- As liver disease progressive and the spleen gets bigger the platelet count drops – platelet count is an important test – can get a rough idea of who is at risk of having a more advance disease
name some liver tests that can be used
- bilirubin
- aspirate aminotransferae (AST)
- Alanine aminotransferase (ALT)
- alkaline phosphatase
- gamma glumly transpeptidase
describe the liver tests that can be used and the things that can cause them to rise independent to the liver
• Bilirubin – Unconjugated vs conjugated • Aspartate aminotransferase (AST) – hepatocyte release – Mitochondrial enzyme – Heart/muscle/kidney – hepatitis
• Alanine aminotransferae (ALT) – hepatocyte release – involved in moving amino groups to make new amino acids from keotacids
– Liver specific
• Alkaline phosphatase
– Bile cannalicular + sinusoidal membranes
– Bone/placenta it is also present in here, can be high in pregnancy
– Cholestasis – intra/extrahepatic
• Gamma glutamyl transpeptidase (GGT) – Hepatocellular – Cholestasis – Alcohol often associated – Made in liver and biliary cells
If is AST/ALT are high this indicates
hepatic damage
if Alkaline phosphate and gamma GT is high this indicates
cholestatic
if
- AST > ALT
ALT > AST
AST > ALT – alcohol
ALT > AST – eg viruses / NAFLD
alcohol does not put …
– Alcohol doesn’t put ALT > 500
- 500-1500 prephaps due to an autoimmune hepatitis
- If greater than 1500 acute hepatitis virus/drugs/ischemia
what imaging do you use on the liver
• Ultrasound – Biliary tree – Liver lesions – Ascites – Spleen – Veins – Other pathology • CT • MRI • ERCP / MRCP – looks at the bile ducts and pancreas
what are the complications of chronic liver disease
- Liver failure – if the liver is damaged it might not work well so we look at function tests of the liver
- Cirrhosis – leads to portal hypertension
- Malignancy
What happens f you have raised portal hypertension
- the blood builds up and you end up with pressure in the portal system
can result in three things - dilated abdominal veins - caput medusa
- ascites
- splenomegaly
what does a child-turocotte -pugh score determine
- this is a measure of how badly cirrhosis you liver is, helps work out if the liver is compensated or decompensated
what re the 5 points on the child -turoctte- Pugh score
- bilirubin - as the amount of bilirubin increases the score increases
- albumin - as the amount of albumin increases the score increases
- prothrombin score as the prothrombin time increases the score increases
- hepatic encephopahty symptom grade - as this gets more controlled the points increase
- asicites - as this gets worse the points increase
- each of the 5 points can be given a mark of 1 to 3 depending on severity
- the lowest score you can get is 5
- 5-6 is class A where your. liver is compensated and works normally
- 7-9 class B and 10-15 class C this is when the liver is decompensated and does not work properly
what are the three things that should you have hepatic decompensation
encephalopathy
portal hypertension
bleeding
describe how ascites happens
1, portal hyperntesion increases this causes the back up of blood in the splenic vein
2, leads to splanchnic vasodilation
3, this decreases the effectiveness of the circulatory volume
4, this activates the renin-angiontesin-aldosterone system
5, leads to renal sodium remaining in the body
6, this leads to ascites due to an increase in onoctic pressure
or
when the renin angiotensin aldosterone system is activated you could have renal vasoconstriction and this leads to hepatorenal syndrome
what are the treatments of ascites
– Low salt diet
– Diuretics
– 50% 2 year mortality
• transplantation