Cirrhosis of the Liver

Introduction

Cirrhosis is a chronic liver disease, marked with the impairment of liver tissue, loss of function of the liver, scarring on the liver, accumulation of water in the abdomen and bleeding. Cirrhosis is a term introduced by Laennec, Paris clinician, and it is originated from the Greek word cirros, meaning yellow, because the liver of diseased person is yellow.

Cirrhosis occurs as a result of other diseases of the liver, which damage liver over time, and in most cases it is hepatitis. The most common cause of cirrhosis along with a genetic predisposition and hepatitis is alcoholism. There is also Cryptogenic cirrhosis in which nor alcohol nor jaundice are present.

Symptoms

Patients general condition is changing. Patient suffers from greater loss of body weight, feels tired and their body temperature is increasing. They have a feeling of heaviness in the stomach, and are fat intolerant. The skin of patient becomes yellow, because the liver can not remove bilirubine.

On the skin, chest and arms red dotted spots are appearing, with a thin blood vessels that are formed in shape of spider webs (spider nevus). The palms are experiencing redness (palmar erythema).

In men sometimes comes to testicular atrophy, gynecomastia (painful breast augmentation), and reduced hairiness. In severe forms severe abdominal pain may occur. That is a sign that there is an infection, depression and loss of concentration, and fluid accumulation in the abdomen (ascites).

Ascites

The abdomen of the patient begins to swell noticeably, and the amount of excreted urine is reduced. While excreted urine has a characteristic dark color. The abdomen becomes very tense and is expanding to a maximum yield point of the skin. Therefore the patient has great difficulty with breathing.

Therapy

Cirrhosis is a very serious disease and should be primarily prevented. The first and basic preventive measures are we need to minimize or entirely remove drinking of alcohol. In case of hepatitis patient should follow the detailed instructions from their doctor in order to heal his liver and avoid the complications of the disease, which often leads to cirrhosis of the liver.

Patient must also comply with his diet regime and avoid a greater amount of salt in food. Furthermore he should avoid any efforts, cold weather conditions and contact with persons suffering from infectious diseases. For patients who also have ascites, it is necessary to include adiuretic therapy.

It should be emphasized that the liver cirrhosis is an incurable disease, which with proper treatment can be kept under control and therefore prevent progression of the disease. The only way of healing the patient completely is liver transplantation.