"Ask the Doctor": Liver Disease/Transplants

February 29, 2000

The Houston Chronicle presents "Ask the Doctor" with Dr. Dyer who discusses health issues concerning liver disease, transplants, hepatitis, alcohol related diseases, and organ donation.

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HoustonChronicle: Good morning everyone. Welcome to Ask the Doctor! The purpose of the Ask The Doctor chats are to provide general information, and is in no way intended to be construed as medical advice for any visitors' specific disease or condition. The intent is to increase a participants' knowledge about a general disease or condition. For treatment of your specific condition please see your personal physician. This forum is not intended to be used in emergency situations. If you are uncertain of the urgency of your problem or condition, contact your personal physician or the nearest hospital for assistance. HoustonChronicle.com, St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital - Houston and the Talk City Network are proud to present our special guests for today, the doctors of the Texas Liver Institute at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital. Welcome Dr. Dyer!

Dr. Dyer: Hello everyone!

Sigmagirl: Can you give me some general information about the liver? Where is it? How big is it?

Dr. Dyer: It sits under the ribs, on the right, under the bottom ribs, protected by the ribs. It's a bit bigger than a football.

Feenie: What is the relationship of the liver to the gall bladder? Does the health of one affect the health of the other?

Dr. Dyer: The liver cells make bile, which contains many things, and the bile is secreted by the liver cells into tiny tubes or pipes that connect, like the twigs on a tree, the branches getting bigger and bigger, until all the bile then terminates in the main trunk of the "tree" which is the main bile duct. This then drains the bile into the intestine. The bile contains bile acids to help your digestion, all the old hemoglobin, and it also contains many other substances that the body is excreting into the intestine that the body will discharge with the stool. The gall bladder is small, like an appendage, or a small reservoir, that connects to the side of the main bile duct, or the trunk of the biliary "tree" and it can store and hold some bile, and discharge that extra stored bile into the small intestines through the bile duct, with the rest of the bile in the bile duct. But in fact plenty of bile can be stored in the tree anyway, and losing the extra reservoir of the gall bladder doesn't matter - you can live without it. Mine's missing, and I do very well. Really, there's no significant relationship between the two, however, if you develop gallstones in the bladder, and there are some diseases where one will affect the other. For example, if gallstones form in the gall bladder, and a small stone is able to get out of the gall bladder and down into the main trunk of the tree, the main bile duct, and get stuck in the bile duct, it will obstruct the flow of bile coming down from the liver and pressure can back up in the liver, causing some liver abnormalities.

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