What is cirrhosis? Who is most likely to develop cirrhosis?

Cirrhosis is considered one of the "four incurable diseases". Especially with the habit of drinking alcohol, the proportion of people infected with hepatitis virus, the problem of dirty food today, cirrhosis is becoming more and more a common disease. To understand more about cirrhosis, symptoms and effects of cirrhosis, let us find out in the article below.

What is cirrhosis?

Cirrhosis occurs in response to your liver damage. Every time the liver is injured, it will repair itself, the healthy cells on the liver will be replaced by fibrous tissue, scarring and forming new birth nodes. As scar tissue grows, liver function declines, the liver cannot perform its normal activities anymore.

The liver performs a number of essential functions, including detoxifying toxic substances in the body, cleansing the blood and creating important nutrients. Although the liver works quite hard, when the disease is common, the liver often "self-treat", when the liver is damaged, the remaining healthy tissue can still deal with the daily metabolic activities, do not immediately transmit the signal. signs that the liver is damaged, so liver disease is not easy to detect. Significant symptoms only occur when liver damage has exceeded 70%.

Approximately 80-90% of patients with liver cancer have experienced initial stages of illness from chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis and then liver cancer. Therefore, the process of liver cancer is considered to be encapsulated in "3 steps": Hepatitis - Cirrhosis and Liver Cancer. Decompensated cirrhosis is the term used to describe the development of specific complications due to changes caused by cirrhosis, which can be life-threatening.

Liver damage caused by cirrhosis is usually irreversible, but if cirrhosis is diagnosed early and the cause is treated, new liver damage may be limited.

Images compare healthy liver and diseased liver.

Symptoms of cirrhosis

As mentioned above, it is difficult to detect liver diseases early, so early symptoms of cirrhotic patients are quite faint. But when many scar tissue replaces healthy tissue and impaired liver function, you may have the following symptoms:

Early cirrhosis

Early cirrhosis or often called compensated cirrhosis. The stage of compensated cirrhosis is the time when the patient has just switched from chronic hepatitis to cirrhosis. At this stage, due to the ability to compensate well, the healthy liver parts will "burden" the work of the damaged liver parts, the patient has less manifestation of liver function decline. Therefore, symptoms of cirrhosis in this period are often poor, patients can manifest as:

• Patients feel internal discomfort, indigestion, bloating, indigestion, digestive disorders.
• The body is tired, may have a mild fever in the afternoon.
• The lower ribs must have occasional pain with increasing levels over time.
• Urine is dark yellow
• The liver is enlarged
• Star capillaries appear on the back, chest, hands, red legs.
• The hair in the armpit and genitals gradually dissipates.
• Dry, white fingernails, pure men, atrophy, breast atrophy. In women with sexual desire may have amenorrhea, in men with reduced libido may be impotent.
• The stage of compensated cirrhosis takes place long-term and stable over many years, but often progresses progressively. The disease can develop quickly if it meets favorable conditions.

End-stage cirrhosis

The stage of decompensated cirrhosis is often referred to as end-stage cirrhosis, which is when the severely debilitated liver almost loses its ability to function. This stage is also called decompensation because liver cells are no longer able to recover to compensate for the fibrosis cells. During this period, 80% to 90% of the liver structure has been damaged by fiber organizations and is no longer able to recover. The patient will have the following symptoms:

• Health decreased markedly, severe gastrointestinal disorders, defecated black stool.
• One or both legs are soft, edgy, when pressed with a dent, leave 1 to 2 minutes after the dent disappears.
• Abdominal enlargement due to ascites. If too much fluid can insert arteries, dilate, rupture the esophageal vein, causing the patient to bleed massively and die.
• Occurrence of jaundice, the skin may initially be mild yellow, then increasingly darker yellow, yellow in the palm of the hand then spread to the whole body skin.
• The patient may be lethargic, half-dreamed because the liver cannot filter ammonia, causing the brain to become poisoned at the time of fainting.
• Endocrine function of the body is also affected, men exhibit typical cirrhosis such as testicular atrophy, breast enlargement, decreased sexual desire, women often suffer from menstrual disorders or loss of kin
• The patient may have mental disorders such as loss of concentration, sleep disorders. If the disease progresses seriously, the patient will be agitated and struggle and eventually become lethargic, which can lead to death.

At this stage, liver function has been severely reduced. The treatment support is mainly focused on reducing pain for patients, supporting symptomatic treatment with analgesics, diuretics, reducing edema .

Subjects prone to cirrhosis

Cirrhosis is a difficult disease to detect in the early stages, only when severe illnesses appear typical symptoms, so the support for treatment of cirrhosis is more difficult than ever. Subjects at high risk of developing cirrhosis should be aware of and actively seek medical care for early screening. Those are the objects:

• People with or have liver problems such as fatty liver, alcoholic hepatitis, viral hepatitis, hot liver .
• Alcoholics or due to the nature of their work often drink alcohol and beer.
• Obese or overweight people or people who regularly eat high-fat foods.

Causes of cirrhosis

Causes of cirrhosis.

Currently, there are a number of major causes identified as the culprits causing cirrhosis:

• Alcoholic beverages : Alcohol, beer and alcoholic drinks can be said to be the main cause of liver problems, especially in impure self-cooking wines with many toxic substances that cause serious injury. onto liver cells. If you drink too much alcohol or alcohol in general for a long time, there will be fatty liver disease, then progress to cirrhosis. Studies have shown that, if consumption of about 40-60ml of alcohol per day, the risk of cirrhosis is six times higher than that of non-drinkers; people taking about 60-80 ml of alcohol per day, the risk of cirrhosis increases 14 times. Nearly 60% of chronic alcoholics suffer from fatty liver disease, 20% -30% will develop into cirrhosis.
• Viral infections : Hepatitis B and C after a long period of inadequate treatment or treatment may be an opportunity for cirrhosis to develop. Research data shows that 15% -20% of patients with hepatitis will develop cirrhosis within 6 years, 10% -15% of patients with cirrhosis develop liver cancer. Among patients with cirrhosis and liver cancer, 80% -90% of people are at risk of carrying hepatitis B. If not treated, about 90% of patients will die from cirrhosis or liver cancer in 30 - 50 years later.
• Parasitic infections : Due to unhygienic eating habits, poor control of food origin and processing of high-risk parasite dishes, many people eat parasites. Parasites in raw food, especially liver fluke when entering the body will stimulate the proliferation of fibrous connective tissue to become liver fluke, it can cause venous hypertension, forming fluke cirrhosis.
• Cholestatic cirrhosis : Bile that is deposited by inflammation, obstruction or gallstones will have negative effects on the liver as well as liver cells and may result in liver fibrosis.
• Obesity: Obesity is one of the causes of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. This disease occurs when too much fat accumulates in liver cells. Although science has not identified the exact cause of the actual disease, it may be a disease related to metabolic disorders, high blood pressure, and high triglyceride levels that often occur when obesity is present. When the liver contains too much fat, it can lead to cirrhosis, liver failure. Even though people over 40-50 are more susceptible to illness, it does not rule out obese teenagers who are also likely to become ill.
• Freshwater : Multi-sugar soft drinks easily cause obesity, so it also affects the liver. One study found that people who drank from a soft drink or more each day were more susceptible to fatty liver than those who did not drink at all. This risk is even higher in people who are obese and overweight.
• Acetaminophen-containing drugs : High doses of Acetaminophen can cause liver failure, even death. Do not take an overdose of a drug containing Acetaminophen, it is best to take only one drug containing this ingredient. This is an ingredient in many medicines, including cough medicines.
• Genetic diseases : Some genetic conditions also lead to liver disease, such as hemochromatosis, which causes accumulation of iron in the body, leading to cirrhosis, liver failure. In addition, copper accumulation not only harms the liver but also affects the brain and other organs. However, these diseases can be treated.
• Autoimmune disease : When the body's immune system mistakes and attacks the liver, it causes autoimmune hepatitis. The cause of this condition is unknown but may be hereditary. This disease often affects women, especially those with other amyotrophic diseases. Biliary cirrhosis is also an autoimmune disease affecting women. These two diseases can cause cirrhosis, liver failure if left untreated.
• Smoking : Smoking increases the risk of liver cancer and cirrhosis. Toxic chemicals in cigarette smoke can cause inflammation, cirrhosis, increased production of cytokines, chemicals that increase inflammation and damage liver cells. People with hepatitis B and C smoking also increase the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma.
• Gastrointestinal hemorrhage : When cirrhosis comes to a severe stage, blood passing through the liver is blocked and increases portal venous pressure and the host system. In addition, the esophageal and venous aneurysms are also reduced. In cases where these veins are excessively dilated, a rupture will occur, causing the patient to vomit blood, or if blood breaks down the stomach along the esophagus, through the small intestine and the large intestine leading to millions bowel movements produce black stools. If this happens, a person with liver disease should be taken to an emergency immediately, or it could be life-threatening.

Treatment of cirrhosis

Modern medicine does not yet have a specific therapeutic drug to restore cured liver cells. The purpose of supporting the treatment of cirrhosis is only to reduce complications, limit the development of cured cells.

To treat cirrhosis is often based on the cause of the disease, so the patient needs to determine what causes his cirrhosis and thereby limit and prevent those causes, avoiding the situation More severe disease.

In addition, patients need to rest much, avoid strong exercise and overwork, use drugs as directed by doctors. In case of occurrence of ascites, patients should be hospitalized to support daily treatment and facilitate monitoring of electrolytes in the blood daily.

Patients with cirrhosis need to establish a proper diet as well as daily activities, limiting high-fat foods, high-cholesterol items, increasing fiber in the diet, adequate diet nutrients. Scientific activities, limiting staying up late, exercising regularly and keeping your mind at ease.

To limit this dangerous cirrhosis, we need:

• Implement well measures to prevent hepatitis virus infection
• Limit the use of alcoholic beverages
• Eat well with nutrients
• Prevention of infection is liver
• Support for thorough treatment of biliary tract diseases
• Use medicines as directed by your doctor
• Periodic liver tests