Liver Pathology Flashcards
Pathogenesis of liver disease
Insult to hepatocytes → grading (degree of inflammation) → staging (degree of fibrosis) → cirrhosis
Causes of acute liver failure
Viruses, alcohol, drugs, bile duct obstruction
Outcomes of acute liver failure
Complete recovery, chronic liver disease, death
What is jaundice?
Yellowing of the skin due to bilirubin
Pre-hepatic jaundice:
- Why does it occur?
- Examples of causes
- Is bilirubin conjugated or unconjugated?
- When there is too much haem to break down
- Haemolytic anaemia
- Unconjugated bilirubin
Hepatic jaundice:
- Why does it occur?
- Examples of causes
- Is bilirubin conjugated or unconjugated?
- When liver cells are injured or dead
- Pregnancy, acute liver failure, alcoholic hepatitis, cirrhosis, bile duct loss
- Both unconjugated and conjugated bilirubin
Post-hepatic jaundice:
- Why does it occur?
- Examples of causes
- Is bilirubin conjugated or unconjugated?
- Bile cannot escape the bowel
- Congenital biliary atresia, gallstones in common bile duct, strictures of common bile duct, tumours
- Conjucated
What is liver cirrhosis defined by?
Bands of fibrosis separating regenerative nodules of hepatocytes
2 types of liver cirrhosis
Macronodular and micronodular
Causes of liver cirrhosis
Alcohol, gallstones, hepatitis B and C, iron overload, autoimmune liver disease
Complications of liver cirrhosis
Portal hypertension, ascites, liver failure
Clinical features of chronic liver disease
Oedema, ascites, haematemesis, gynaecomastia, spider naevi, purpura and bleeding, coma, infection
What causes oedema in chronic liver disease?
Hypoalbuminaemia
What causes ascites in chronic liver disease?
Hypoalbuminaemia, secondary hypoaldosteronism, portal hypertension
What causes haematemesis in chronic liver disease?
Ruptured oesophageal varices due to portal hypertension
What causes gynaecomastia in chronic liver disease?
Hyperoestrogenism
What causes spider naevi in chronic liver disease?
Hyperoestrogenism
What causes purpura and bleeding in chronic liver disease?
Reduced clotting factor synthesis
What causes coma in chronic liver disease?
Failure to eliminate toxic gut bacterial metabolites
What causes infection in chronic liver disease?
Reduced Kupffer cells and numbers
Pathogenesis of alcoholic liver disease
o Increased peripheral release of fatty acids and increased synthesis of fatty acids within liver cells
o Acetaldehyde, a product of alcohol metabolism, is probably responsible for liver cell injury, manifested by the formation of Mallory’s hyaline
o There is increased collagen synthesis by fibroblasts and by the perisinusoidal cells of Ito
Duration of liver disease and alcoholic liver disease:
- 2-3 days
- 4-6 weeks
- Months-years
- Years
2-3 days → fatty liver → reversible
4-6 weeks → hepatitis → reversible
Months-years → fibrosis → irreversible
Years → cirrhosis → irreversible
Weekend binge drinking:
- Pathology in hepatocytes
- Outcome
- Differential diagnoses
- Fat vacuoles in hepatocytes
- Reversible outcome
- NASH, pregnancy, drugs, nutritional, diabetes, hepatitis C
Heavy drinking for weeks to months:
- Histological features
- Outcome
- Hepatocyte necrosis, neutrophils, mallory bodies, pericellular fibrosis
- Reversible if drinking stops
Heavy drinking for months to years:
- Histological features
- Outcome
- Collagen is laid down around cells, bands of fibrosis separating regenerative nodules
- Irreversible
Outcomes for alcoholic liver disease
Cirrhosis, portal hypertension, varices, ascites, malnutrition, hepatocellular carcinoma
Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis:
- Which patients does it occur in?
- What can it lead to?
- Non drinkers, diabetes, obesity, hyperlipidaemia
- Fibrosis and cirrhosis
Viruses that can cause:
- Hepatitis A
- Hepatitis B
- Hepatitis C
- Hepatitis D
- Hepatitis A = Epstein Barr virus
- Hepatitis B = yellow fever virus
- Hepatitis C = herpes simplex virus
- Hepatitis D = cytomegalovirus
Hepatitis A:
- Spread
- Incubation period
- Is there a carrier state?
- Outcome
- Faecal-oral spread
- Short incubation period
- No carrier state
- Mild illness with usually full recovery
Hepatitis B:
- Spread
- Incubation period
- How does it cause liver disease?
- Is there a carrier state?
- Outcomes
- Spread by blood, blood products, sexually, vertically
- Long incubation period
- Causes liver disease by antiviral immune response
- Carriers exist
- Death, chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis, hepatocellular carcinoma, asymptomatic
Hepatitis C:
- Spread
- Incubation period
- Outcomes
- Blood, blood products
- Short incubation period
- Chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis
Aetiology of chronic hepatitis
Hepatitis B, hepatitis C, primary biliary cirrhosis, autoimmune hepatitis, drug induced hepatitis, primary sclerosing cholangitis
Primary biliary cirrhosis:
- What is it caused by?
- More common in males or females?
- Outcome
- Autoimmune disease associated with autoantibodies to mitochondria
- Females (90%)
- Bile duct loss leads to cholestasis, liver injury, inflammation, fibrosis and cirrhosis
Autoimmune hepatitis:
- More common in males or females?
- Which cells are numerous?
- What are autoantibodies to?
- Females
- Plasma cells are numerous
- Autoantibodies to smooth muscle, nuclear or LKM, raised IgG
Primary sclerosing cholangitis:
- What is it?
- What can it lead to?
- What disease is it associated with?
- Which gender is it more common in?
- What does histological staining show?
- Chronic inflammatory process affecting intra- and extra-hepatic bile ducts
- Leads to periductnal fibrosis, duct destruction, jaundice and fibrosis
- Ulcerative colitis
- Femakes
- Periductnal onion-skinning fibrosis
Haemochromatosis:
- What is it?
- Primary causes
- Secondary causes
- Excess of iron in the liver
- Genetic condition, increased absorption of iron
- Iron overload from diet, transfusions, iron therapy
Is primary haemochromatosis autosomal dominant or recessive?
Recessive
Where in the liver does iron accumulate?
Hepatocytes
Which staining is used to confirm iron?
Perls staining
Wilson’s disease:
- What is it?
- Where does copper accumulate?
- Signs
- What can it cause?
- Inherited autosomal recessive disorder of copper metabolism
- Liver and brain
- Kayser-Fleischer rings at corneal limbus and low serum caeruloplasmin
- Chronic hepatitis and neurological deteriorateion
Alpha-1-antitrypsin deficiency:
- What is it?
- What does it cause?
- Inherited autosomal recessive disorder of an enzyme inhibitor
- Empyema, cirrhosis
Primary tumours of the liver
Hepatocellular adenoma, hepatocellular carcinoma
Where can liver cancer metastasise from?
Colon, pancreas, breast, lung, etc
Hepatocellular carcinoma:
- What is it associated with?
- How does it present?
- HBV, HCV, cirrhosis
- Mass, pain, obstruction
What is acute liver disease?
The rapid development of hepatic dysfunction without prior liver disease
Functions of the liver
- Protein metabolism
- Carbohydrate metabolism
- Lipid metabolism
- Bile acid metabolism
- Bilirubin metabolism
- Hormone and drug metabolism
- Immunological defence
Liver function tests
ALT/AST, Alk phos, GGT, bilirubin, albumin, prothrombin time
Duration of acute liver disease
<6 months duration
Acute liver failure
Causing encephalopathy and prolonged coagulation
Clinical features of acute liver disease
Jaundice, lethargy, nausea, anorexia, pain, itch, arthralgia, abnormal liver function tests
Causes of acute liver disease
Viral A, B, C, D, E, CMV, EBV, drugs, shock to liver, cholangitis, alcohol, malignancy, chronic liver disease, overuse of paracetamol, Budd Chiari, acute fatty liver or cholestasis of pregnancy