Medicinal Hepatitis - Causes, Symptoms And Treatment

2024 Author: Josephine Shorter | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 21:43

Medicinal hepatitis

Content:

• What is medicinal hepatitis?
• Symptoms of medicinal hepatitis
• Causes of medicinal hepatitis
• Diagnosis of medicinal hepatitis
• Treatment of medicinal hepatitis
• Complications of medicinal hepatitis
• Prevention of drug-induced hepatitis

What is medicinal hepatitis?

Medicinal hepatitis is a dangerous disease that develops as a result of toxic damage to liver tissue by components that make up certain medications. Against the background of the development of this form of hepatitis in patients, an inflammatory process is revealed, which is accompanied by necrosis of liver cells.

Modern medicine distinguishes two forms of the course of medicinal hepatitis:

1. The acute form of hepatitis is divided into:

   • for cytolytic;
   • mixed;
   • to cholestatic.

2. Chronic form. According to the data published in the specialized mass media, drug hepatitis (in women, this disease is diagnosed 2-3 times more often) causes various complications:

   • liver failure or cirrhosis develops - in 12% -25% of patients;
   • during pharmacotherapy, serious complications occur - in 1% -28% of patients.

Symptoms of medicinal hepatitis

Medicinal hepatitis is often accompanied by symptoms characteristic of this disease:

• nausea;
• vomiting;
• itching of the skin;
• heaviness in the right hypochondrium;
• loss of appetite;
• bitterness in the mouth;
• belching (has a very unpleasant odor, reminiscent of rotten eggs);
• fever, often accompanied by temperature changes;
• constipation or diarrhea;
• sudden weight loss;
• pain in the liver;
• discoloration of the skin (patients may develop jaundice);
• discoloration of urine and feces;
• at a late stage of drug hepatitis (with necrosis), patients develop liver failure.

Causes of medicinal hepatitis

The reasons for the development of drug-induced hepatitis include the following factors:

• advanced age of patients;
• the susceptibility of the human body to the hepatotoxic effect of drugs;
• impaired liver and kidney function;
• decrease in the intensity of blood flow in the liver;
• high sensitivity of the patient to a specific medication;
• a person's genetic predisposition to diseases of the gastrointestinal tract;
• alcohol abuse, smoking;
• nervous shocks, frequent presence of the patient in stressful situations, depressive conditions;
• chronic liver disease;
• the wrong combination of medications;
• overweight (with obesity, many patients are diagnosed with fatty hepatosis, which is a serious liver pathology);
• poisoning caused by vapors of poisonous or chemical preparations, etc.

To date, a list of medications has been identified that provoke the development of medicinal hepatitis:

• hormonal;
• anticonvulsants;
• antifungal;
• antiepileptic;
• diuretics;
• sulfonamides;
• cytostatics;
• antibiotics;
• blood thinners;
• drugs for the treatment of arrhythmias, tuberculosis.

Diagnosis of medicinal hepatitis

If the primary symptoms of drug hepatitis manifest, the patient should immediately make an appointment with a gastroenterologist.

During the appointment, the doctor will take a history of the disease, palpate the liver area and prescribe a number of laboratory tests:

• general and clinical blood test;
• coagulogram;
• general urine analysis;
• biochemical liver samples, etc.

The main purpose of the diagnostics is to exclude serious diseases that have similar symptoms:

• Malignant and benign neoplasms in the liver;
• gallstone disease;
• viral hepatitis, etc.

Without fail, the patient is sent for a hardware ultrasound examination, during which it will be possible to identify the scale of the changes in the liver.

Treatment of medicinal hepatitis

The attending physician who prescribes therapy for a patient with a diagnosis of drug-induced hepatitis should first of all cancel the drugs that caused such liver damage. In the event that the intake of these drugs is due to the treatment of serious diseases, the specialist must select safer analogues for them.

Without fail, the attending physician must carry out a number of measures aimed at removing toxic metabolites from the patient's body.

The choice of technique directly depends on the degree of complexity of each specific case:

• plasmaphoresis;
• detoxification therapy (infusion);
• hemodialysis. Patients are prescribed special drugs that can restore liver function at the microcellular level - hepatoprotectors.

On the subject: List of the best hepatoprotectors for liver restoration

In order for the treatment to bring the desired result as quickly as possible, patients must adhere to a special diet:

• eat fractionally (often in small portions);
• limit the amount of fat in the daily diet;
• increase the amount of protein consumed;
• take vitamins;
• completely exclude smoked meats, fried and spicy foods, preservation;
• drink clean water, herbal tea, rosehip decoction (refuse carbonated drinks and packaged juices);

In the case when medicinal hepatosis was detected at an early stage of development, after which the patient immediately stopped taking the drug that negatively affects his body and began to adhere to a diet, one can count on a complete recovery.

Complications of medicinal hepatitis

Against the background of drug hepatitis, complications that are very dangerous for the patient's health and life can develop:

• cirrhosis of the liver;
• liver failure;
• hepatic coma;
• death of the patient.

Prevention of drug-induced hepatitis

In order to prevent drug hepatitis, doctors recommend not to self-medicate, during which medication is usually taken uncontrollably, but to adhere to the recommendations of the attending physician, who will correctly calculate the dosage.

On the subject: What can and cannot be eaten with liver disease?

If the patient is to undergo long-term treatment, he needs to take hepatoprotectors, as well as undergo laboratory examination, thanks to which it will be possible to detect drug-induced hepatitis at an early stage of development.

Author of the article: Kletkin Maxim Evgenievich | Hepatologist

Education: Diploma in the specialty "General Medicine" received at the Military Medical Academy. S. M. Kirov (2007). At the Voronezh Medical Academy. NN Burdenko graduated from residency in the specialty "Hepatologist" (2012).