Cirrhosis of the liver occurs when scar tissue forms on the liver. As the scarring worsens, symptoms and complications of the condition manifest. According to the American Gastroenterological Association, cirrhosis of the liver is the 11th leading...
There's only one sure way to determine whether you have fatty liver disease; it involves a long needle piercing your skin to remove tissue from the organ. Before you get to that point, your health care provider may suspect you have fatty liver...
Stab wounds to the abdomen occur when a sharp object penetrates the abdominal cavity. Knife blades and projectile fragments are often associated with penetrating wounds. Because of the number of other organs within the abdominal area, the...
Liver disease is any disease or disorder that causes liver dysfunction. Medline Medical Encyclopedia states that there are many possible causes of this health problem, including autoimmune hepatitis, liver cirrhosis, drug-induced cholestasis,...
According to Lawrence Friedman, M.D. and professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School in "Current Medical Diagnosis & Treatment," 20 percent to 30 percent of Americans have nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Alcoholism also causes a...
Your liver is a major organ that handles over 200 bodily processes. including blood filtering, producing bile, and storing fat soluble vitamins. In an adult, the liver weighs about 3 lbs. and is located beneath your ribs, in the upper portion of...
A carcinoid, also called a carcinoid tumor, is a rare, slow-growing cancer of the neuroendocrine system. This system furnishes hormones that govern organ function throughout the body. According to Macmillan Cancer Support, 85 percent of carcinoids...
After a cancer diagnosis, the cancer is then staged. This involves other tests to see where the cancer has spread to and whether it's anywhere else in the body. Tools used to stage liver cancer include the X-ray, CT scan, MRI, bone scan and...
Fatty liver, or hepatosteatosis, is a disorder in which normal liver cells are replaced with fat cells. This will have different effects on the function of the liver, depending on the disorder's severity or how many liver cells have been replaced...
Fatty liver, or an excess of fat buildup in the liver, can cause inflammation which can result in cirrhosis. Cirrhosis is the hardening of the liver and leads to liver failure. According to the American College of Gastroenterology, fatty liver...
Jaundice is a condition that causes the skin and eyes to become discolored, turning a noticeable shade of yellow. While many people correlate jaundice with newborns, it can also occur in adults. Jaundice is a result of excess bilirubin in the...
Bile ducts are a part of the body's system known as the biliary system. These ducts join the gall bladder and liver to the small intestine, delivering bile for the digestion of fats. Bile duct cancer (medical name, cholangiocarcinoma) is one of...
Breasts or mammary glands are made of connective tissue, fat and milk-producing lobules. They also consist of lymph vessels and lymph nodes containing white blood cells that can trap bacteria and cancer cells. Every once in a while, the orderly...
Liver enzymes are special proteins that perform functions inside the cells of your liver. If your liver becomes inflamed, damaged or infected, these proteins start to leak out into the bloodstream and cause higher than normal amounts to appear in...
The liver is the largest organ in the abdominal cavity. Located predominantly in the upper right quadrant, of the abdomen, the liver performs over 400 different processes that sustain a healthy body. When exposed to disease, the liver can enlarge,...
Your liver serves an important function for your body. It helps filter toxins, stores glycogen and produces bile to aid in digestion. Eating fatty foods can negatively impact your liver and possibly destroy it. The liver is so important that you...
Signs and symptoms of cirrhosis vary between the different stages and may be undetected until after the initial stage. Biological factors may play a part in inheriting cirrhosis, but that is rare. Behavioral factors play the biggest role. Knowing...
Albumin deficiency, or hypoalbuminemia, is an abnormally low level of the protein albumin in the blood. You might have it tested as part of a standard panel of liver function tests. The normal range for albumin is 3.5 to 4.5 mg/dL. If your albumin...
A computerized tomography scan---known as a CT or CAT scan---is an upgraded version of an X-ray combined with computer technology. The result is a clearer, more-detailed view of the inside the body. CT scans can produce pictures of an individual's...
Liver disease may occur as a result of diabetes, and the reverse is true as well. Non-alcoholic liver disease may also be caused by obesity, protein deficiency, HIV infection and exposure to toxic chemicals. Drugs such as corticosteroids,...
Long term excessive alcohol intake causes chronic diseases in several organ systems, particularly the liver. Alcohol causes a range of liver diseases. It can cause the liver to become fatty, termed alcoholic steatosis. The liver may become...
The liver carries out many essential functions, including clearing toxins from the body, manufacturing bile and certain proteins, storing certain minerals and vitamins, and breaking down red blood cells. Damage to the liver has a wide impact on...
Learn about the physical symptoms you might experience if you have cholestasis, in order to identify if you have the condition. Suffering from cholestasis means that bile can't flow out of your liver. There are many underlying causes of...
Abdominal pain consistently ranks in the top five reasons for hospital emergency room visits, says the August 2010 edition of "Annals of Emergency Medicine". The list of potential reasons for abdominal pain fills the pages of medical textbooks,...
According to the Mayo Clinic, liver function tests are blood tests that doctors use to determine whether a patient has a damaged or diseased liver. Some of the tests assay the blood levels of certain enzymes that the liver secretes into the blood...
Developing numbness of your feet while on a treadmill is a sign of a neurological condition known as peripheral neuropathy. This condition is caused by damage to the nerves in your leg. Loss of sensation in your legs leaves you at risk for...
Primary liver cancer arises from a malignant tumor in the liver. The human liver filters waste from the body, stores nutrients and creates bile, which is necessary for us to get nutrition from our food. It also creates factors that help our blood...
Diagnostic imaging in the medical field has many tools, and one of them is the CT scan. The letters CT stand for computed tomography. CT scans work in a way that is similar to x-ray scans, the kind that produce images of cavities in teeth. CT...
Hepatitis B is a highly contagious infection of the liver, which can range from mild to severe. Hepatitis B can be classified as acute or chronic, depending on how long the virus remains in the body. According to the Centers for Disease Control...
