Chlorpromazine-induced cholestatic liver disease with ductopenia

We describe a 30-year-old pregnant woman in whom cholestatic liver disease developed 16 resp. 18 days after the medication of chlorprothixeni hydrochloridum and chlorpromazine treatment in the 33rd week of pregnancy. Clinically, the course was characterized by severe jaundice lasting 10 months, fever, pruritus, high serum alkaline phosphatase level, transient aminotransferase elevation, and hypercholesterolemia. The pregnancy was terminated in the 35th week by cesarean section with the birth of a premature female newborn without any signs of liver damage. The histological examination of the mother's liver revealed ductopenia, defined by the absence of interlobular bile ducts in at least 50% of the small portal tracts, and long-standing cholestasis with pseudoxanthomatous transformation of hepatocytes and ductular epithelia, and small lobular xanthomas. The jaundice resolved very slowly after ursodeoxycholic acid therapy. The liver function tests 26 months after the onset of jaundice showed only a slight elevation of alkaline phosphatase and aminotransferases. In the control liver biopsy, non-active periportal and septal fibrosis without signs of cholestasis was seen. To our knowledge this is the sixth report to document chlorpromazine-induced ductopenia in pregnancy and the first to describe a newborn without any liver damage.