[Occupational toxic hepatopathies. Current etiopathogenetic and diagnostic trends]

The large number of xenobiotic agents, associated with work or otherwise, that can attack the body, and the fundamental part played by the liver in the control of metabolic homeostasis offered the occasion for an examination of the present position with regard to the aetiopathogenesis and diagnosis of occupational toxic diseases of the liver. Attention is particularly directed to recent biochemical knowledge (molecular and cellular), to the main aetiopathogenetic features, and to the most modern criteria for the evaluation of liver damage, especially that of a chronic kind.