Abstract
The clinical symptoms and prognosis of 13 longterm cases of autoimmune hepatitis were studied. Discrepancies of liver functions (T-Bil, GOT, γ-Gl, Ch-E, HPT, ESR, ICR-R15) were examined and compared at the begining and end of the observation period. All subjects were females, aged 18 to 64 (mean, 43.7) years at the onset of the disease. Over half of the patients had exhibited extra-hepatic manifestations such as arthritis and pyrexia. The observation periods were from 1 to 21 (mean, 7.5) years. One patient deteriorated and died from lung abscess during observation. The other 12 patients were alive and liver function tests were shown statistically to have no significant difference between the onset and end of the observation period. The results indicate that autoimmune hepatitis of Japanese will not get rapidly worse and the prognosis is better than that for Europeans or Americans.
