Liver disease
Signs and symptoms of human liver disease and canine liver disease in dogs: There are many types of liver diseases, with as many signs and symptoms. Some are listed below:
Amebic liver abscess: This is a liver disease in which there is an accumulation of pus in the liver, caused by the intestinal parasite Entamoeba histolytica. This is parasite is responsible for causing amebiasis. This results in a consistent stabbing pain in the upper right region of the abdomen, along with other symptoms.
Autoimmune hepatitis: In this liver disease the normal liver cells are mistaken for harmful invaders by the immune system, causing an attack that results in the inflammation of the liver. Typical signs and symptoms of the disease are dark urine, abdominal distention, generalized itching and a pale colored stool.
Biliary atresia: This is caused by the abnormal development of the bile duct and is a condition present from birth.
Cirrhosis- Chronic liver diseases result in Cirrhosis of the liver. In the US, the general causes for cirrhosis are hepatitis C infection and long-term alcohol abuse. Signs and symptoms include swollen legs, blood vomiting and jaundice.
Canine liver disease or infectious canine hepatitis is a severe liver condition in dogs. The signs and symptoms include loss of appetite, fever, depression and coughing. Additional canine liver disease in dogs include vomiting, jaundice and corneal edema.
Alcoholic Liver Disease and Its Symptoms: The use of alcohol is one of the leading causes for liver diseases all over the world. According to research, about three percent women and ten percent men in the US suffer from alcohol related ailments, including liver diseases. Although alcohol also affects other organs, it is mainly the liver that bears the brunt, since all the alcohol consumed by a person is metabolized in the liver. The liver is capable of handling normal quantities of alcohol with ease, but excessive and prolonged alcohol consumption leads to severe liver dysfunction. Liver cirrhosis is a serious diseases resulting from alcohol abuse. It has been found that ten to fifteen percent alcoholics are affected with cirrhosis of the liver, resulting in death. Some of the main symptoms of liver diseases that result from the intake of alcohol include loss of appetite, jaundice, nausea, abdominal pain and tenderness, collection of fluid in the abdomen, mental confusion, fatigue and excessive thirst. In the advanced stages, the patients are known to vomit blood.
Fatty liver disease: Fatty liver disease can be classified into NAFLD or Non Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease, NASH or Non Alcoholic Steatohepatitis and cirrhosis. The term non-alcoholic is used to differentiate from ALD or Alcoholic liver diseases, which have similar symptoms. In fatty liver diseases, there is an accumulation of fat within the hepatocytes, the main liver cells. This type of liver disease usually affects obese non-alcoholics. The accumulation of fat in the liver can lead to steatohepatitis, in which the liver gets inflamed. The patient experiences dull pain in the upper right side of the abdomen and exhibits skin yellowing, confusion, nausea and vomiting.
A later stage of NAFLD is cirrhosis, which usually occurs at fifty or sixty years of age. The two types are compensated cirrhosis and de-compensated cirrhosis. In compensated cirrhosis, the liver becomes large and hardens and small star shaped marks on the skin of the upper torso are observed. There is hair loss and the nails turn white. De-compensated cirrhosis has the same signs, except for a shrunken liver and swollen legs.
Model for End Stage liver disease (MELD): The acronym for Model for End Stage Liver Disease is MELD. It is a disease severity scoring system for adults with liver disease, used to judge the priority of the organ allocation for transplantation. Model for End Stage Liver Disease predicts survival on the basis of the values of serum billuribin, serum creatinine and INR or international normalized ratio for prothrombin time. The formula for calculation is: MELD=3.8[Ln Serum bilirubin(mg/dL)]+11.2[LnINR]+9.6[Ln serum creatinine(mg/dL}]+6.4.
The United Network for Organ Sharing uses this score while prioritizing allocation of liver transplants. The maximum MELD score is 40. If the patient has been dialyized twice within a week, the score 4.0 is used as the serum creatinine value. Value below one is taken as one.
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