A case of chronic veno-occlusive disease of the liver

A case of chronic veno-occlusive disease of the liver manifested by ascites in a 59-year-old Japanese male is described. The patient had not been exposed to pyrrolizidine alkaloids, but had been receiving allopurinol for hyperuricemia, the only drug taken throughout the period in which the hepatic lesion developed. The hepatic veins and inferior vena cava were patent according to angiography. The first biopsy showed histological characteristics of the disease and the following two biopsies demonstrated the progression of the hepatic lesion from central fibrosis to non-portal cirrhosis. Morphometric analysis of the sublobular and central veins in the three serial biopsy specimens demonstrated stepwise decrease of the ratio of the veins per portal triad and stepwise increase of severely obliterative veins.