[Studies on juvenile chronic hepatitis].

Follow-up study of 40 children suffering from chronic hepatitis. The diagnosis was made by liver needle biopsy with the Menghini method, when clinical signs or laboratory data of liver disease had lasted for more than 6 months. 24 patients showed the histological pattern of the aggressiv type of chronic hepatitis according to the definition of the European Association for the Study of the Liver (1968). In this group only 5 children had autoantibodies in the serum (so-called lupoid hepatitis). The HBAg positive courses played the most important part in the chronic persistent group as well as in the aggressive one. According to literature only the patients with the aggressive type have been treated with prednison, because chronic persistent hepatitis has a good prognosis without any treatment. In nearly all cases high transaminases and gammaglobulin levels decreased during the treatment with prednison, whereas the histological signs of inflammation seldom changed. Cirrhosis of the liver has developed in 2 HBAg positive patients of the aggressive group, who had not consequently received their daily dose of prednison.