"Ask the Doctor": Liver Disease

March 21, 2000

The Houston Chronicle presents "Ask the Doctor" featuring Dr. Woods who discusses health issues including liver disease, transplants, hepatitus, alcohol related diseases, and cancer.

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HoustonChronicle: Welcome to Ask the Doctor! The purpose of the Ask The Doctor chats is 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 participant's 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. Woods!

Dr. Woods: Thank you very much! It's great to be here! Let me apologize. I think I announced that Dr. Dyer would be doing the chat today, but he is tied up. So you're stuck with Dr. Woods today!

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

Dr. Woods: The liver occupies most of the upper right hand side of the abdomen. It's largely protected by the ribs on the right side, and sits under the diaphragm, a muscle that separates the abdomen from the chest. On average, the liver weighs anywhere from about a pound and a half in a small adult, to three to four pounds in a large adult.

Daiseygurly: I understand there are several different types of hepatitis. Can you briefly talk about them?

Dr. Woods: The first thing to define is what hepatitis means. Hepatitis is a very non-specific term that refers to anything that injures or inflames the liver. Hepatitis can be caused by viruses, reactions to medications, toxins such as alcohol, or even things like low blood pressure. The most common form of hepatitis that most people think of is viral hepatitis. And that can be caused by any of a number of viruses. For reasons that I don't understand, these viruses have been labeled by letters of the alphabet. They now go from hepatitis A, all the way through hepatitis G. And I believe there is even some talk of hepatitis H. The three most common types of viral hepatitis are hepatitis A, B, and C. Briefly, hepatitis A is an infection that you get by eating contaminated food or food products. This is most common in day care centers, or in other areas where food may be contaminated with fecal material. Hepatitis A is generally an acute illness where the patient gets fairly sick, but usually recovers fully. Rarely, in the very old or very young, hepatitis A may be fatal. Hepatitis B and C are types of viral hepatitis that are transmitted in manners similar to the AIDS virus. Most commonly, hepatitis B and C are transmitted either through contaminated blood or blood products using dirty intravenous needles, sexually transmitted, or transmitted through things like body piercing or the use of intranasal cocaine. In general, hepatitis B results in a fairly severe illness which may be fatal, but from which approximately eighty percent of people will recover and be immune from further infection from hepatitis B. Twenty percent of people will develop a chronic infection with hepatitis B, go on to develop cirrhosis of the liver, and possibly require a liver transplant. Finally, hepatitis C usually results in a fairly mild acute infection. But unfortunately, over eighty percent of people who have an acute infection of hepatitis C will go on to develop chronic hepatitis C infection, and may develop cirrhosis of the liver.

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