[Special pathogenetic forms of hepatitis in old age]

Although infectious hepatitis (IH) is, at the present time, predominantly a disease of adolescence and young adulthood, when it does occur in advanced age, it is associated with a higher level of mortality due to fulminant hepatitis, and with a more frequently chronic, subicteric and anicteric course. The reasons for this are to be found in a greater viral persistence, with concomitant lowering of the immune defences, secondary diseases, prior diseases of the liver, drug and alcohol abuse. A particularly unfavourable effect on the prognosis is ascribed to the use of corticosteroids in the acute phase of the disease.