[Liver diseases in pregnancy]

An analysis is made of the hepatopathies characteristic of pregnancy according to the latest research and from experience of the Pathology Department of the Hospital Central of San Luis Potosí. Such entities are the fatty liver, the hyperemesis gravidarum, the preeclampsia and eclampsia and the cholestasis of pregnancy. It is estimated that the eclamptic state is capable of showing clinical, structural and laboratory manifestations which vary absolutely and which bring us to consider as dependent upon the fatty liver, the HELLP syndrome and some cases of cholestasis. Also, cholestasis of pregnancy, determined genetically, must be distinguished from that which is associated with eclampsia or determined by drugs or other causes. Similarly, hyperemesis gravidarum may be primary, although rarely so, or be due to neurological causes; it is also capable of causing slight liver dysfunction. Finally, the above-mentioned ailments are correlated within the classic physiopathological grid of jaundice.