Institute of Tropical Medicine, Nagasaki University
Abstract
We performed a clinico-pathological study of 163 untreated cases of chronic hepatitis C. Most of the patients were clinically asymptomatic and their physical examinations showed unremarkable or minimal changes at the time of the liver biopsy. Liver function tests tended to present slight abnormalities, involving mainly alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and gamma-glutamil transferase (GGT) levels. In spite of these mild abnormalities, advanced chronic liver disease was histologically detected in the majority of the patients, mainly showing chronic active hepatitis. Most characteristic histological finding was an interlobular bile duct damage, which correlated with the presence of lymphoid aggregates in the portal tracts and with the development of fibrosis
