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2.9.8 CIRRHOSIS

When chronic diseases cause the liver to become permanently injured and scarred, the condition is called cirrhosis. The scar tissue that forms in cirrhosis harms the structure of the liver, blocking the flow of blood through the organ. The loss of normal liver tissue slows the processing of nutrients, hormones, drugs, and toxins by the liver. Also slowed is production of proteins and other substances made by the liver.

People with liver cirrhosis may develop many problems beyond the liver. When the liver is scarred, the blood cannot easily get through the liver, and backs up under higher than normal pressure (portal hypertension). This often causes ascites, which is yellow fluid that leaks out of the bloodstream into the abdominal cavity.

If the ascites becomes tense, it can cause an umbilical hernia (a protruding belly button). The backed-up blood also often creates varices, in which the pressure causes the blood vessels around the esophagus to burst causing significant blood loss. Varices can be treated with beta blockers, or can be obliterated using endoscopically-placed rubber bands or injections of liquid that cause the varices to scar. If endoscopy fails to stop bleeding, a TIPS (transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt) can be created by inserting a short metal mesh tube through a neck vein into the liver and connecting the portal vein in the liver to a regular vein in the liver. Another alternative is to surgically redirect some of the blood flow around the liver.

People with cirrhosis sometimes may develop jaundice (a yellowing of the whites of the eyes or the skin) due to an accumulation of bilirubin in the blood. If the bilirubin is excreted in the urine, the urine may turn dark.

People with cirrhosis are also at risk for hepatic encephalopathy, which is fatigue or confusion caused by ammonia and other products of protein digestion which are inadequately cleared from the bloodstream by the liver.

People with cirrhosis often bruise easily because the liver manufactures reduced amounts of clotting factors. Additionally, platelets may be lower than normal in the circulation if the spleen is enlarged.

A spleen enlarged from portal hypertension may hold onto too many platelets.

Chronic HCV infection leads to cirrhosis in at least 20 percent of patients within 2 decades of the onset of infection. Cirrhosis and end-stage liver disease may occasionally develop rapidly, especially among patients with concomitant alcohol use. - National Institutes of Health Consensus Statement on Hepatitis C 1997



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