An approach to acute hepatitis on liver biopsy

Acute hepatitis is a clinical term referring to elevated liver biochemistries for less than 6  months duration, and is associated with a wide variety of clinical and histologic manifestations as well as a wide range of etiologies. The role of the pathologist in this setting is to confirm the pattern of injury, provide an etiologic differential diagnosis, and assess degree of injury or fibro sis as prognostic indicators. In the setting of a clinical acute hepatitis, the histologic patterns of injury include: severely active lobular hepatitis (panlobular hepatitis); zone 3 hepatitis; active hepatitis with confluent necrosis; mildly active hepatitis; resolving hepatitis; and giant cell he patitis.
Source: Diagnostic Histopathology - Category: Pathology Authors: Tags: Mini-symposium: Practical approaches to medical liver disease Source Type: research