Chronic active hepatitis in childhood with detection of liver-pancreas-specific autoantibodies

This paper describes a special form of chronic active hepatitis (CAH) with hypergammaglobulinemia in a ten-year-old girl. Because of unclear symptoms she was admitted to our hospital for exclusion of leukemia. However, further clinical and laboratory investigations suggested an autoimmune hepatitis although the typical antibodies could not be found in the immunofluorescence test. Only the detection of liver-pancreas-specific, complement-fixing autoantibodies (LP-antibodies) confirmed the diagnosis of an autoimmune hepatitis. Histology showed typical infiltrations of plasma cells and lymphocytes in the periportal area. LP-antibodies had been recently described in 20 adults with HBs-Ag-negative CAH[6]. To our knowledge this is the first report on LP-positive hepatitis in childhood. As a therapeutic response is likely, early immunosuppressive treatment is indicated.