Aspects of paediatric liver disease in Karachi.

Seventy children with hepatomegaly, between the ages of 3 months and 13 years, were investigated including a liver biopsy in 60, to study the general pattern of liver disease in children. Thirty percent had acute viral hapatitis, 20 percent cirrhosis, 17.6 percent pulmonary tuberculosis, 18 percent hereditary diseases and 14 percent miscellaneous diseases involving the liver. None of the cases met the criteria for Indian childhood cirrhosis. It was concluded that in Karachi pulmonary tuberculosis was a common case of hepatosplenomegaly in children and that the aetiology of cirrhosis was probably multifactorial.