1992 Volume 34 Issue 4 Pages 813-821
In 7 patients surviving f ulminant hepatitis, laparoscopy and liver biopsy were perform-ed within 1 to 4 weeks from the onset and followed up for 6 to 106 months. In the first laparoscopy, 4 patients had small depressions on the liver surface and 3 patients had large depressions. The patients with small depressions were diagnosed to have acute hepatitis by histological findings. Three of them had acute type, taking less than 10 days from the onset to coma and the remaining patients had subacute type. On the follow-up laparoscopy and biopsy, small depressions were not observed. The histological examination showed chronic active hepatits in 2 cases and prolonged hepatitis in 1 case and the remaining case had minimal change. Hepatitis C virus antibody was positive in 2 cases of chronic active hepatitis. Three patients with large depressions had submassive hepatic necrosis on histological examination. 2 had acute type, and 1 had subacute type. By the follow-up examination, depressions remained in 2 cases. Histological findings showed chronic active hepatitis in 2 cases and fatty change in 1 case.
