Inflammation and fibrosis in chronic liver diseases including non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and hepatitis C.

ABSTRACT: At present chronic liver disease (CLD), the third commonest cause of premature death in the United Kingdom is detected late, when interventions are ineffective, resulting in considerable morbidity and mortality. Injury to the liver, the largest solid organ in the body, leads to a cascade of inflammatory events. Chronic inflammation leads to the activation of hepatic stellate cells that undergo trans-differentiation to become myofibroblasts, the main extra-cellular matrix producing cells in the liver; over time increased extra-cellular matrix production results in the formation of liver fibrosis. Although fibrogenesis may be viewed as having evolved as a "wound healing" process that preserves tissue integrity, sustained chronic fibrosis can become pathogenic culminating in CLD, cirrhosis an

SUBMITTER: Tanwar S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6962431 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature