[Morphology of late hepatic lesions after thorotrast (author's transl)]

Late lesions of the liver after longstanding exposure to thorotrast are the following: adaptive and degenerative alterations of hepatocytes, proliferation and atypical morphology of sinusoidal cells, ectasia of sinusoids, portal fibrosis due to inflammatory as well as non-inflammatory changes with transition to complete cirrhosis. Pronounced changes of sinusoidal cells and sinusoidal shape occur most frequently in the immediate vicinity of angiosarcomas. Just as in chronic vinyl chlorid intoxication these changes may represent an early stage of angiosarcoma, or may be due to the fact, that an angiosarcoma is close to the hepatic area, where the biopsy specimen was taken from. However, liver tissue surrounding carcinoma induced by thorotrast usually shows only noncharacteristic alterations, except in cases, where cirrhosis of the liver is present.