Spontaneous regression of oesophageal varices after long-term conservative treatment. Retrospective study in 20 patients with alcoholic liver cirrhosis, posthepatitic cirrhosis and haemochromatosis with cirrhosis

Principles of diagnosis and treatment of alcohol-induced liver fibrosis

Alcohol-related liver diseases are one of the leading causes of death worldwide, primarily due to complications of liver cirrhosis (LC). Early detection of alcohol-induced liver fibrosis (LF) is a difficult task, since often  alcoholic liver disease (ALD) is clinically manifested only at late stages. Given that not all alcoholic suffer from ALD, the widespread use of liver biopsy to verify the diagnosis is not advisable. Despite the variety of proposed non-invasive methods for assessing the severity of LF in patients with ALD, none of them has sufficient validation and therefore cannot be recommended for widespread use in clinical practice. The most well-studied transient elastography, due to its suboptimal specificity, can be effectively used only to exclude clinically significant LF or LC. The only proven approach to treat ALD is persistent and total alcohol abstinence. While the therapeutic options for patients with severe forms of acute hepatitis remain unchanged since the 70s of the last century and are based mainly on the use of corticosteroids, currently, there are no approaches to antifibrotic therapy of ALD approved by the guidelines. At the same time, modern achievements in understanding the pathophysiological mechanisms  of this disease  have served  as an impetus  for  the development  of ways to solve  the problem. In particular, providing intestinal eubiosis may be an important goal for the prevention and treatment of alcohol-induced LF. Randomized controlled multicenter trials involving a large number of patients are needed to confirm this and other hypotheses related to antifibrotic therapy of ALD and to accept them as a standard of medical care.

Pathophysiology and Management of Variceal Bleeding

Cirrhosis is the fifth leading cause of death in adults. Advanced cirrhosis can cause significant portal hypertension (PH), which is responsible for many of the complications observed in patients with cirrhosis, such as varices. If portal pressure exceeds a certain threshold, the patient is at risk of developing life-threatening bleeding from varices. Variceal bleeding has a high incidence among patients with liver cirrhosis and carries a high risk of mortality and morbidity. The management of variceal bleeding is complex, often requiring a multidisciplinary approach involving pharmacological, endoscopic, and radiologic interventions. In terms of management, three stages can be considered: primary prophylaxis, active bleeding, and secondary prophylaxis. The main goal of primary and secondary prophylaxis is to prevent variceal bleeding. However, active variceal bleeding is a medical emergency that requires swift intervention to stop the bleeding and achieve durable hemostasis. We describe the pathophysiology of cirrhosis and PH to contextualize the formation of gastric and esophageal varices. We also discuss the currently available treatments and compare how they fare in each stage of clinical management, with a special focus on drugs that can prevent bleeding or assist in achieving hemostasis.

Regression of portal hypertension: underlying mechanisms and therapeutic strategies

Portal hypertension is the main non-neoplastic complication of chronic liver disease, being the cause of important life-threatening events including the development of ascites or variceal bleeding. The primary factor in the development of portal hypertension is a pathological increase in the intrahepatic vascular resistance, due to liver microcirculatory dysfunction, which is subsequently aggravated by extra-hepatic vascular disturbances including elevation of portal blood inflow. Evidence from pre-clinical models of cirrhosis has demonstrated that portal hypertension and chronic liver disease can be reversible if the injurious etiological agent is removed and can be further promoted using pharmacological therapy. These important observations have been partially demonstrated in clinical studies. This paper aims at providing an updated review of the currently available data regarding spontaneous and drug-promoted regression of portal hypertension, paying special attention to the clinical evidence. It also considers pathophysiological caveats that highlight the need for caution in establishing a new dogma that human chronic liver disease and portal hypertension is reversible.

Managing portal hypertension in patients with liver cirrhosis

Portal hypertension is one cause and a part of a dynamic process triggered by chronic liver disease, mostly induced by alcohol or incorrect nutrition and less often by viral infections and autoimmune or genetic disease. Adequate staging - continuously modified by current knowledge - should guide the prevention and treatment of portal hypertension with defined endpoints. The main goals are interruption of etiology and prevention of complications followed, if necessary, by treatment of these. For the past few decades, shunts, mostly as intrahepatic stent bypass between portal and hepatic vein branches, have played an important role in the prevention of recurrent bleeding and ascites formation, although their impact on survival remains ambiguous. Systemic drugs, such as non-selective beta-blockers, statins, or antibiotics, reduce portal hypertension by decreasing intrahepatic resistance or portal tributary blood flow or by blunting inflammatory stimuli inside and outside the liver. Here, the interactions among the gut, liver, and brain are increasingly examined for new therapeutic options. There is no general panacea. The interruption of initiating factors is key. If not possible or if not possible in a timely manner, combined approaches should receive more attention before considering liver transplantation.

Regression of esophageal varices and splenomegaly in two patients with hepatitis-C-related liver cirrhosis after interferon and ribavirin combination therapy

Some recent studies have found regression of liver cirrhosis after antiviral therapy in patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV)-related liver cirrhosis, but there have been no reports of complete regression of esophageal varices after interferon/peg-interferon and ribavirin combination therapy. We describe two cases of complete regression of esophageal varices and splenomegaly after interferon-alpha and ribavirin combination therapy in patients with HCV-related liver cirrhosis. Esophageal varices and splenomegaly regressed after 3 and 8 years of sustained virologic responses in cases 1 and 2, respectively. To our knowledge, this is the first study demonstrating that complications of liver cirrhosis, such as esophageal varices and splenomegaly, can regress after antiviral therapy in patients with HCV-related liver cirrhosis.

Regression of esophageal varices during entecavir treatment in patients with hepatitis-B-virus-related liver cirrhosis

Recent studies suggest that liver cirrhosis is reversible after administering oral nucleos(t)ide analogue therapy to patients with hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. However, few studies have addressed whether esophageal varices can regress after such therapy. We report a case of complete regression of esophageal varices during entecavir therapy in patients with HBV-related liver cirrhosis, suggesting that complications of liver cirrhosis such as esophageal varices can regress after the long-term suppression of HBV replication.

Therapies: Drugs, Scopes and Transjugular Intrahepatic Portosystemic Shunt--When and How?

Variceal bleeding is the most serious complication of portal hypertension. All cirrhotic patients should be screened endoscopically for varices which are present in about 30% of compensated and 60% of decompensated patients at diagnosis. In patients without varices, endoscopy surveillance should be continued every 2 years. Patients with high-risk varices (moderate or large in size, or with red color signs, or in Child-Pugh C patients) should be treated with a nonselective β-blocker to prevent bleeding (propranolol, nadolol or carvedilol). Endoscopic banding ligation is also effective for the prevention of first bleeding, and it is the first choice in patients with contraindications or intolerance to β-blockers. Acute variceal hemorrhage still has a high mortality rate (around 15%) and requires intensive care management and conservative blood transfusion policy. Treatment is based on the combined use of vasoactive drugs, endoscopic band ligation and prophylactic antibiotics. Failures are best managed by transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS). Balloon tamponade or specifically designed covered esophageal stents can be used as a bridge to definitive therapy in unstable patients. Early, preemptive TIPS might be the first choice in patients at high risk of failure (Child-Pugh B with active bleeding or Child-Pugh C up to 13 points). Patients surviving a variceal bleeding are at high risk of rebleeding. A combination of β-blockers and endoscopic band ligation is the most effective therapeutic approach. Preliminary data suggest that the addition of simvastatin increases survival in these patients.

Future therapy of portal hypertension in liver cirrhosis - a guess

In patients with chronic liver disease, portal hypertension is driven by progressive fibrosis and intrahepatic vasoconstriction. Interruption of the initiating and perpetuating etiology—mostly leading to necroinflammation—is possible for several underlying causes, such as autoimmune hepatitis, hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, and most recently hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. Thus, in the long run, lifestyle-related liver damage due to chronic alcoholism or morbid obesity will remain the main factor leading to portal hypertension. Both causes are probably more easily countered by socioeconomic measures than by individual approaches. If chronic liver injury supporting fibrogenesis and portal hypertension cannot be interrupted, a wide variety of tools are available to modulate and reduce intrahepatic resistance and therewith portal hypertension. Many of these have been evaluated in animal models. Also, some well-established drugs, which are used in humans for other indications (for example, statins), are promising if applied early and concomitantly to standard therapy. In the future, more individually tailored strategies must also be considered in line with the spectrum of portal hypertensive complications and risk factors defined by high-throughput analysis of the patient’s genome, transcriptome, metabolome, or microbiome.

Induced hypothyroidism accelerates the regression of liver fibrosis in rats

BACKGROUND AND AIM

It has been shown in previous studies that hypothyroidism prevents the development of liver fibrosis in bile duct ligated rats and in rats chronically treated with thioacetamide (TAA). In recent years, regression of liver fibrosis (occurring spontaneously or during treatment) has been demonstrated in rodent models such as bile duct ligation and CCl(4) administration. Therefore, in the present study, the potential therapeutic effect of hypothyroidism on liver fibrosis was investigated.

METHODS

Liver fibrosis was induced in rats by administration of TAA (200 mg/kg, i.p., twice weekly) for 12 weeks. Hypothyroidism was then induced by either methimazole (0.04%) or propylthiouracil (0.05%) administered in drinking water for 8 weeks. Control euthyroid rats received normal drinking water. Hypothyroidism was confirmed by a significant elevation of serum thyroid-stimulating hormone levels.

RESULTS

Eight weeks after the cessation of TAA administration, spleen weight, histological score of liver fibrosis, and hepatic hydroxyproline content were significantly lower in both groups of hypothyroid rats as compared to euthyroid controls (P < 0.001). In vitro studies using the rat hepatic stellate cell line HSC-T6 using northern blot analysis and zymography, respectively, showed that high concentrations of triiodotyronine (T(3)) enhanced transforming growth factor (TGF)-beta-induced collagen I gene expression, and reduced metalloproteinase (MMP)-2 secretion, implying that reducing the levels of T(3) may contribute to resolution of fibrosis. Additionally, low T(3) concentration inhibited HSC-T6 proliferation.

CONCLUSION

Pharmacologically induced hypothyroidism accelerates the resolution of liver fibrosis in rats. This beneficial effect may in part be due to prevention of T(3)-induced stimulation of collagen synthesis and reduction of MMP-2 secretion.

Hereditary hemochromatosis: genetic complexity and new diagnostic approaches

Since the discovery of the hemochromatosis gene (HFE) in 1996, several novel gene defects have been detected, explaining the mechanism and diversity of iron-overload diseases. At least 4 main types of hereditary hemochromatosis (HH) have been identified. Surprisingly, genes involved in HH encode for proteins that all affect pathways centered around liver hepcidin synthesis and its interaction with ferroportin, an iron exporter in enterocytes and macrophages. Hepcidin concentrations in urine negatively correlate with the severity of HH. Cytokine-mediated increases in hepcidin appear to be an important causative factor in anemia of inflammation, which is characterized by sequestration of iron in the macrophage system. For clinicians, the challenge is now to diagnose HH before irreversible damage develops and, at the same time, to distinguish progressive iron overload from increasingly common diseases with only moderately increased body iron stores, such as the metabolic syndrome. Understanding the molecular regulation of iron homeostasis may be helpful in designing innovative and reliable DNA and protein tests for diagnosis. Subsequently, evidence-based diagnostic strategies must be developed, using both conventional and innovative laboratory tests, to differentiate between the various causes of distortions of iron metabolism. This review describes new insights in mechanisms of iron overload, which are needed to understand new developments in diagnostic medicine.

Clinical, biochemical and imaging-verified regression of hepatitis B-induced cirrhosis

In a 65-year-old patient with ascites, jaundice and positive hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), the histological diagnosis of cirrhosis with knodell total score 13 was made in 1995. The patient was followed up for 8 years. Spontaneous seroconversion of HBsAg appeared. Except for slight hyperbilirubinemia, all pathologic, clinical laboratory data remained normal from the second year of diagnosis till 8 years of follow-up. In the last follow up, the markers of liver fibrosis were all normal. The portal vein diameter was decreased and the esophageal varices disappeared. The imaging of liver by sonography and CT-scan did not reveal any abnormality.

Portal hypertension and iron depletion in patients with genetic hemochromatosis

Clinically, portal hypertension has been considered to be less common and less severe in patients with cirrhosis resulting from iron overload in homozygotes for genetic hemochromatosis than in patients with cirrhosis of other causes. To characterize the prevalence and progression of portal hypertension in genetic hemochromatosis (GH), 120 cirrhosis and iron-overloaded patients were compared with a control group of 120 patients with postnecrotic cirrhosis (PNC) who were matched for gender, age, Child's class, and alcohol abuse. Gastroesophageal endoscopy and abdominal ultrasonography were performed at diagnosis and repeated every 12 months and every 6 months, respectively, to evaluate the presence and severity of varices, the caliber of the portal vein and its collaterals, and splenic size. At diagnosis a similar frequency of varices was observed in patients with GH (25%) and in PNC (24%), as well as of portal vein abnormalities and spleen enlargement. During the follow-up period, all but two of the patients with GH were treated by phlebotomy and depleted of excess iron. After a mean of 6 +/- 4.3 (SD) years of observations (range, 2 to 10 years), varices were improved or completely reversed in 26% of patients with cirrhosis and GH but in only 5% of those with PNC (P < .01). Bleeding from varices was observed in only one patient with GH but in five patients with PNC. Of 22 patients with GH in whom portal hypertension was unmodified or worsened, 16 had coexistent hepatic viral infection.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Clinical spectrum and management of haemochromatosis

Haemochromatosis is one of the most common inborn errors of metabolism. In prospective epidemiological studies the frequency of haemochromatosis is 0.0037 (76/20333 subjects) for homozygotes which corresponds to a gene frequency of 0.061 and a frequency of heterozygotes of 0.115. Abnormality in liver function tests, weakness and lethargy, skin hyperpigmentation, diabetes mellitus, arthralgia, impotence and ECG abnormalities are the most frequent findings and symptoms at diagnosis. In recent years about 50% of patients were detected without having liver cirrhosis and 20% of patients did not have any symptoms and pathology except iron overload. Survival analyses in long-term studies showed that in the absence of cirrhosis and diabetes, iron removal by phlebotomy therapy prevents further tissue damage and guarantees a normal life expectancy. Patients with massive and long-lasting iron overload had a worse prognosis than those with less severe iron excess. Iron removal in general ameliorated liver disease, weakness and cardiac abnormalities, and also prevented the progression of endocrine alterations. Therapy, however, did not influence insulin-dependent diabetes. Most deaths in patients with hereditary haemochromatosis were caused by liver cancers which often occurred many years after complete iron removal. In patients with haemochromatosis, liver cirrhosis, cardiomyopathy, and diabetes mellitus are also significantly more frequent causes of deaths when compared with the general population. Further strategies have to evaluate the design of screening programmes in order to diagnose more patients in the precirrhotic and asymptomatic stage.