A CLINICOPATHOLOGICAL STUDY ON LIVER INJURY IN PATIENTS WITH CHRONIC ALCOHOLIC PANCREATITIS

Abstract

In order to clarify the relationship between the hepatic and exocrine pancreatic injuries in patients with chronic pancreatitis, liver function tests in 74 cases with chronic alcoholic pancreatitis (CAP) and 40 cases with chronic idiopathic pancreatitis (CIP) were analysed and histologic findings of biopsied liver in 33 cases with CAP were studied.
The incidence of abnormal liver function tests was higher in CAP than in CIP. However, on the histologic findings of biopsied liver in patients with CAP, hepatic fibrosis was the lesion most often observed, followed by minimal changes, and liver cirrhosis was rather rarely found. The histologic findings of the liver in patients with CAP bore no relation to the presence of pancreatic calcification, the X-ray findings of pancreatic and bile ducts or to the pancreatic exocrine function, but bore a close relation to the total amount of the ethanol consumption.
These observations indicate that the grade of alcoholic liver injury does not necessarily paralell the severity of alcoholic pancreatic injury and that the hepatic lesions in CAP are principally of alcohol-induced ones with minor share of secondary liver injury associated with pancreatitis.