[Errors in the diagnosis of chronic intrahepatic cholestasis]

In nine out of ten patients referred in the years 1982-1987 to the Infectious Diseases Department of the Medical Academy in Bydgoszcz with the diagnosis of chronic (sometimes lasting several years) intrahepatic cholestasis an extrahepatic etiology of cholestasis was recognised. The main causes of the made errors were, it seems, an excessive confidence in the results of laboratory examinations carried out by modern diagnostic methods and a not very careful analysis of the disease. Exploratory laparotomy should be the examination of decisive importance in cholestasis of unclear etiology.