[Liver damage caused by drugs]

The liver has a central role in the metabolism of many drugs, since this organ is the main site of biotransformation of endo- and xenobiotics. Water-soluble drugs have a small volume of distribution and can be eliminated unchanged in the urine. By contrast, lipid-soluble drugs have a larger volume of distribution and require conversion to water-soluble metabolites for their elimination in urine or bile. The liver with its specific receptors, transporters and enzymes is responsible for the uptake, transformation and excretion of the lipophilic drugs. While most of the drugs are transformed into stable metabolites, other drugs form reactive, potentially toxic, metabolites producing liver cell damage. Liver injury caused by drugs may mimic almost any kind of liver disease. Clinical findings are gastrointestinal symptoms with nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain, cholestatic liver injury with jaundice and pruritus of severe inflammatory and cirrhotic liver damage with signs of liver failure, encephalopathy and cerebral edema. The morphological changes vary from hepatitis, cholestasis, fatty liver, granulomatous hepatitis, peri-/portal inflammation, to fibrosis with cirrhotic alterations and vascular lesions and tumors. The most commonly used drugs causing severe liver injury are discussed in detail. These are anabolics, oral contraceptives, antituberculous and antifungal agents, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, ring substituted amphetamins ("designer drugs"), antiarrhythmics and antibiotics.