An unusual cause of acute liver failure

ALA presenting as liver failure is rare and is not because of hepatocyte dysfunction, but due to compromised blood flow either from portal vein, hepatic vein or IVC compression, as was seen in our patient. Literature is scarce in the form of clinical case reports or imaging studies, documenting portal vein thrombosis in an ALA as a cause of liver failure.

Pravin Agrawal, Vidhyachandra Gandhi, Aabha Nagral, and Sanjay Nagral
Aug 26, 2010, NCBI

Description

An 80-year-old diabetic and hypertensive lady was admitted with fever associated with chills and pain in the right hypochondrium of 5 days duration. On examination, she was febrile, drowsy and had asterixis. She was icteric and had tenderness with guarding in the right hypochondrium. There was no history of any pre-existing liver disease. Her haemoglobin was 9 g/dl, total leucocyte count was 11 700/mm3, platelets were 1.4 lac/mm3, total bilirubin of 3.3 mg/dl, albumin of 1.9 mg/dl, alkaline phosphatase – 227 U/l (normal 30–150 U/l), SGOT-327 U/l, SGPT-178 U/l and international normalised ratio (INR) was 2.1. Viral markers for A, B, C and E were negative. Ultrasonography showed a hypoechoic lesion in the right hepatic lobe. A CECT abdomen revealed a single 8×7 cm hypodense lesion in segments 5, 6, 7 and 8 with thrombosis of the right portal vein (figure 1A), normal left portal vein (figure 1B) with decreased enhancement of the right lobe and compressed retrohepatic inferior vena cava (IVC) (figure 2). Her serum indirect haemagglutination for Entamoeba histolytica had a titre of 1:2560 (significant titre >1:400) suggestive of an amoebic liver abscess (ALA) and was started on metronidazole. Anchovy sauce-like pus was aspirated (600 ml) from the abscess which did not grow any organism. She improved in terms of consciousness, inotrope requirements and INR (1.4) and bilirubin (1.8 mg/dl). She had started taking oral diet gradually, but had a large vomit following which she developed aspiration pneumonia, went into acute respiratory distress and succumbed.

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