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Other symptoms
Cirrhosis is a condition that results from a variety of diseases. Depending on each, patients may develop a variety of symptoms. For example, jaundice is common in patients with hepatitis or obstruction of the biliary tract. Weight loss and anorexia (low appetite levels) are also expected in these patients, especially those with increased liver size. The organ is pushing the stomach and reducing its capacity. These patients often feel fatigued because there’s a buildup of waste substances in the blood. Another essential sign of portal hypertension is known as telangiectasia, which looks like a spider web of veins in the abdominal skin.
Conclusion
Cirrhosis is a severe and irreversible condition in which the liver loses its architecture. It is one of the final stages in diseases such as hepatitis and alcoholic liver disease. It has various signs and symptoms depending on the severity of the condition and the trigger disease.
Some patients remain asymptomatic despite having a compromised hepatic function. Others display mild symptoms such as tiredness, mild abdominal pain, and loss of appetite. Worrying symptoms start when patients develop ascites and abdominal distension. However, in many patients, the first sign is related to gastrointestinal bleeding, sometimes due to esophageal varices. In moderate and severe cases, patients experience abdominal pain, and the late stage of the disease is known as hepatic encephalopathy. In this stage, the patient displays various neurologic symptoms that include mild memory impairments, personality changes, and confusion, lethargy, or coma in very severe cases.
References
Schuppan, D., & Afdhal, N. H. (2008). Liver cirrhosis. The Lancet, 371(9615), 838-851.
Sharma, B., & John, S. (2019). Hepatic Cirrhosis. In StatPearls [Internet]. StatPearls Publishing.
Loria, A., Escheik, C., Gerber, N. L., & Younossi, Z. M. (2013). Quality of life in cirrhosis. Current gastroenterology reports, 15(1), 301.
