[Granulomatous hepatitis in a hospital population in southern Italy].

In a southern Italy hospital, in five years 1523 liver biopsy specimens have been performed and histologically examined. Granulomas are found in specimens from 15 patient (1%). They are seven females and eight males with an average age of 57 years (range 43-71). Seven of the 15 specimens are Menghini-type percutaneous needle, five are surgical and three are laparoscopic bioptic specimens. Four patients are correlated with infectious diseases: 2 with hepatitis C virus (HCV), 1 with hepatitis B virus (HBV) and 1 with Mycobacterium Tuberculosis. In three patients the diagnosis is primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC), in two sarcoidosis, in other two pseudosarcoid reaction to abdominal tumours (a gall-bladder cancer and a non-Hodgkin lymphoma of the stomach). Finally there are 2 lipogranulomas, 1 foreign-body granuloma and 1 cholesterin granuloma. This work underlines the high prevalence in our series of PBC and sarcoidosis in the etiology of hepatic granulomas and the high frequency of patients with markers of HCV or HBV in granulomatous hepatitis.