Acute Fatty Liver of Pregnancy

Abstract
In 1940 Sheehan1called attention to six patients who developed jaundice in the third trimester of pregnancy and died within three days after delivery. The course in these cases was similar to that of fulminant hepatitis, but histologic examination of the liver revealed no hepatocellular necrosis, little or no inflammatory reaction, and many small intracytoplasmic lipid-laden vacuoles arranged about a centrally placed, normal nucleus. He considered these findings to be a distinct histologic entity which he termed "obstetric acute yellow atrophy." Others subsequently referred to it as "acute fatty metamorphosis of the liver associated with pregnancy"2and "acute fatty liver of pregnancy."3 To date at least 39 patients with this syndrome have been described.1-16Eight others are known to have been studied but not reported.2,3,5,17The cases presented by Barry and O'Dwyer,18Dill (case VI),19and Cullinan (case A)11also may be

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