MORPHOLOGIC STUDY OF UNEXPLAINED HEPATITIS FOLLOWING HALOTHANE ANESTHESIA

  • 1 January 1978
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 91  (1) , 11-32
Abstract
A survey of postoperative jaundice throughout the United Kingdom allowed the detailed analysis of 76 patients with unexplained hepatitis following halothane anesthesia (halothane hepatitis). In 16 patients liver biopsy specimens were examined by light and/or electron microscopy to determine whether liver morphology could aid the differentiation between halothane and acute viral hepatitis. Mitochondrial changes often claimed to be characteristic of halothane hepatitis were unremarkable in these patients. Since lipid vacuolation and a predominantly centrilobular distribution of necrosis are not classically described in fatal viral hepatitis, the presence of these features in some of these fatal cases was of some diagnostic interest. Results of light and electron microscopy in patients with unexplained postoperative hepatitis is considered to have little differential diagnostic value.