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Liver granuloma
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Liver granuloma

Contributors: Abhijeet Waghray MD, Nishant H. Patel MD, Desiree Rivera-Nieves MD, Khaled Bittar MD, Paritosh Prasad MD
Other Resources UpToDate PubMed

Synopsis

A liver granuloma is a histologic entity that is important in the diagnosis of a number of liver pathologies. Granulomas in the liver rarely cause structural hepatic injury, but they can be clues to an underlying systemic disorder that needs to be identified. A granuloma is an organized immune response composed of epithelioid macrophages, multinucleated giant cells, and lymphocytes.

Liver granulomas are most often caused by infection (tuberculosis, fungi), autoimmune disease (sarcoidosis, primary biliary cirrhosis), malignancy (Hodgkin lymphoma), or drug side effects (allopurinol). Sarcoidosis and tuberculosis are the most common causes of liver granulomas.

Symptoms and treatment of a liver granuloma vary with underlying etiology. A variety of proteins may be secreted by cells in granulomas, a few of which are characteristic of certain diseases (eg, elevated serum angiotensin-converting enzyme [ACE] suggests a diagnosis of active sarcoidosis). The presence of granulomas may only be identified through the workup of asymptomatic liver enzyme elevations or hepatomegaly on examination. In some patients, the cause of hepatic granulomas cannot be identified (10%-30%).

Codes

ICD10CM:
K75.3 – Granulomatous hepatitis, not elsewhere classified

SNOMEDCT:
714253009 – Hepatic granuloma

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Therapy

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References

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Last Reviewed:02/06/2018
Last Updated:02/06/2018
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Liver granuloma
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A medical illustration showing key findings of Liver granuloma : Fever, Night sweats, Alkaline phosphatase elevated, AST/ALT elevated
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