[Early liver damage caused by alcohol]

Liver biopsy was taken from 20 patients with chronic and acute alcoholism. The patients had been hospitalized for diverse reasons, had no clinical manifestations of alcoholic hepatitis nor cirrhosis, but did have abnormal liver function tests. The most common abnormal test results were low serum albumin, polyclonal gamma-globulin elevation, and S G O T and Alk P rise. In all patients one or more types of hepatic lesiones were found: steatosis (15), polynuclear and mononuclear infiltrates (15), and portal (7), interstitial (13), or centriobular (8) fibrosis. Two patients had cirrhosis. None had hepatic cell necrosis. These findings justify a motivated search for liver damage in patients with alcoholism who have slight alterations in liver function tests, even in the absence of clinical manifestations of liver disease.