Reversal of liver cirrhosis in autoimmune hepatitis

Abstract

Liver cirrhosis is generally considered irreversible but there are reports in which there is documented reversal of fibrosis/cirrhosis in various clinical conditions like Wilson's disease, hemochromatosis, primary biliary cirrhosis and autoimmune hepatitis. The subgroup of patients with autoimmune hepatitis that will have reversal of cirrhosis is not known. We present two cases with documented liver cirrhosis that had reversal of cirrhosis after treatment with immunosuppressive agents. We postulate that patients presenting with acute hepatitis and no other fibrogenic factors have higher chances of reversal of liver cirrhosis as compared to those presenting as chronic liver injury.