Hepatic granulomas: a 10 year single centre experience

Hepatic granulomas in Turkey: A 6-year clinicopathological study of 35 cases

“…Some frequent causes of HGs include infections, neoplasms, drugs, and autoimmune diseases. Primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) has been reported as one of the most common causes of HGs in Western populations (2,3). On the other hand, the dominant worldwide cause of HGs is mycobacterial infections and sarcoidosis (6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11).…”

“…They occur as a result of a delayed immune response mediated by cell reactions (1). The incidence of hepatic granulomas (HGs) ranges from 2% to 15% in the world (2)(3)(4)(5). The types of etiologies have different characteristics in accordance with the geographical locations and patient population (3)(4)(5).…”

Chronic hepatitis C is a common associated with hepatic granulomas

“…On the other hand, the concurrence of HCV and granulomas may be frequent enough to not be simply explained by chance. A large recent retrospective review found epithelioid granulomas in 63 of 1662 liver biopsies [5] . While primary biliary cirrhosis (23.8%), sarcoidosis (11.1%), and unknown (11.1%) were the most common associations, HCV was associated with 9.5% of the cases.…”

“…In some cases the granulomas are associated with a clinical picture which includes a high alkaline phosphatase and hepatomegaly; but these features are frequently absent. A significant percentage of liver biopsies performed today are for the staging of chronic hepatitis C. Granulomas have been reported with possible increased frequency in patients with hepatitis C with both mild disease as well as in explants [4][5][6][7][8] . It has been postulated that hepatitis C virus (HCV) may have a role in granuloma formation [9] .…”

Relationship between the pathogenesis of sarcoidosis and hepatitis C

“…Firstly, if there had been no spontaneous regression of sarcoidosis in the related case, one might have easily suggested that hepatic granulomas and cutaneous lesions were not associated with sarcoidosis in a patient who had no lung involvement confirmed by transbronchial biopsy. Hepatic granulomas have been described in up to 9.5% of liver biopsies from HCV-infected patients [2] . Additionally, in another series with hepatitis C, the prevelance of hepatic granulomas was found to be 1.3% before the initition of interferon therapy [3] .…”