Alcohol unrelated hepato-biliary disorders in the alcoholic: the role of liver biopsy in determining the aetiology of liver disease
Whelan, G.; Peters, M.; Desmond, P.V.; Bhathal, P.S.
Australian and New Zealand Journal of Medicine 12(1): 34-38
1982
ISSN/ISBN: 0004-8291 PMID: 6952838 Document Number: 183693
Alcoholics with abnormal liver function tests are generally assumed to have a recognized pattern of alcoholic liver injury. Patients (9) who were initially thought to have alcoholic liver disease but were found on liver biopsy to have a variety of liver disorders unrelated to alcohol were described. Liver biopsy showed granulomatous hepatitis (3), primary bilary cirrhosis (2), and cholestasis of unknown cause, large duct biliary obstruction, hemochromatosis with secondary carcinoma and Budd-Chiari syndrome (1 each). The histological changes observed in liver biopsy samples represented a chance occurrence of liver disease due to some agent other than alcohol and illustrated that forms of hepatic disease that affected the population at large occurred in heavy alcohol consumers.