Gastroenterology and Hepatology

Pathophysiology of Hepatitis

The underlying pathophysiology of hepatitis begins in the liver. There are different types of viruses that cause hepatitis namely hepatitis A, B, C, D and E. The pathway begins when the virus enters the blood stream and spreads to the liver. The viral hepatitis doesn’t induce the apoptosis directly. They infect the hepatocytes and replicate to increase their number. After the infection of the hepatocytes the body’s innate and adaptive immunity systems activates leading to the inflammatory responses followed by the cell damage and death. Depending on the immune strength of the individual this can progress into acute or chronic infection. In case of poor immunity of individual then multiple cycles of inflammation, injury occurs leading to the scarring or fibrosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. In the hepatitis infection the function of the natural killer cells (NK cells belonging to the same family as T and B cells) is disturbed.