Chronic liver disease associated with childhood ulcerative colitis.

In a series of 301 patients with ulcerative colitis forty-eight developed the disease before the age of 20. In this group of forty-eight patients there were four cases of serious chronic liver disease as compared with a total of seven cases of chronic liver disease in the whole series. The hepatic lesions in the patients developing colitis in childhood were unrelated to the extent, duration or severity of the colitis but colitis in very early life appeared to predispose to liver disease subsequently.