Liver disorders.

摘要

This section encompasses advances in all the major areas of liver disease. An important addition to this year's section is the contribution of Dr Sanyal on nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. The section on portal hypertension was an unexpected loss this year, but will return next year as will the section on cholestasis and cholestatic syndromes. Other topics will be introduced as clinical circumstances mandate. The contributors to this section have done a superb job of covering advances in their areas of expertise. I will focus on the highlights from each contribution.Dr Lefkowitch (pp. 269-277) ieads off with a review of hepatobiliary pathology. Important contributions were seen in a number of topics. International travel increases the likelihood of exposure to diseases not endemic to the US. There was a detailed description of the histology of hepatitis E; while there were findings similar to hepatitis A, portal lymphoid aggregates, a finding that makes us think of chronic conditions, was an unexpected finding in two cases . There has been significant progress toward our understanding of the entity of IgG4-associated cholangitis, a part of the spectrum of autoimmune pancreatitis . It is critical that the clinician recognize this condition given its responsiveness to immunosuppression.There have been advances in the characterization of benign liver lesions, particularly the entity of telangiectatic adenoma . Two studies looked at specific immunohistochemical stains as a means to differentiate between hepatocellular carcinoma and metastatic cancer as well as between dysplastic nodules and well-differentiated hepatocellular carcinoma .