February 17, 2023
The liver cannot regenerate without limit. Excessive alcohol consumption, diabetes or even a virus can affect its functioning. Eventually, a chronic inflammation called cirrhosis prevents it from functioning normally. But what do we know about this disease?
Certain pathologies are brought to light when a personality suffers from them. This is the case with the cirrhosis of Laurent Regairaz, known as Chicandier, a French humorist who recently confided in being affected by it. At this host of the web-show Addiction please in which he interviewed a guest around a bottle, until drunkenness, the cause is all found: alcohol. But is this the only cause of cirrhosis?
If this is not the only cause, excessive and prolonged alcohol consumption is the cause of 50 to 75% of cases of cirrhosis. Chronic viral hepatitis, liver disease due to infection by viruses (hepatitis C or B) is involved in 15 to 25% of cases. Finally, another important cause is non-alcoholic steatohepatitis or NASH, occurring in patients with metabolic syndrome*.
What is it about ?
The liver is made up of cells called hepatocytes, which are responsible for carrying out the functions of the organ, including the storage and distribution of nutrients, the filtering of blood and the breakdown of toxic substances. Cirrhosis is a serious and irreversible disease, of slow evolution, “consequence of chronic aggression of this organ”, notes the French National Society of Gastroenterology. When it occurs, “hepatic cells are gradually destroyed and replaced by fibrosis”, explains Medicare. Which “surrounds abnormal nodules formed by the anarchic regeneration of destroyed liver cells (also by the disease editor’s note)”.
Only treatment: prevention
There is no treatment for cirrhosis. Faced with this disease, often diagnosed late, stopping the cause is imperative: alcohol withdrawal, treatment of hepatitis B or hepatitis C or treatment of diabetes or overweight.
The management consists of carrying out regular examinations with a half-yearly blood and radiological assessment (liver ultrasound) to monitor liver function and detect possible cancer. Indeed, one of the most serious complications of cirrhosis is liver cancer. This tumor can occur within 15 to 20 years of the formation of cirrhosis.
That being so, “the best treatment remains prevention: avoid excessive alcohol consumption, vaccinate against hepatitis B, lose weight…”recalls the CHU of Bordeaux.
To note : In France, cirrhosis of the liver is the cause of approximately 15,000 deaths per year.
*Other, rarer diseases are involved in 5 to 10% of cases: genetic hemochromatosis or autoimmune diseases such as primary biliary cirrhosis