Clinical study on latent cirrhosis of the liver.

Although the pathogenesis of liver cirrhosis is complex and not clearly understood, it can be assumed that the morphologic changes in the liver do not occur suddenly in a short space of time and that the morphogenesis goes on insidiously. Therefore, the physician discovers liver cirrhosis coincidentally during evaluation of some other unrelated disease in 20% of cirrhotic patients. Moreover, the diagnosis of liver cirrhosis is established initially at autopsy in 13.5-40% of the patients. The clinical aspect of these cases of latent cirrhosis of the liver was investigated and the patients in this category accounted for 30% of the cases.