Hello and welcome to the Zero to Finals podcast.

My name is Tom and in this episode I'm going to be talking to you about liver cirrhosis.

And you can find written notes on this topic at zero tofinals.com slash cirrhosis or in the

gastroenterology section of the Zero to to finals medicine book. So let's get straight

into it. Liver serosis is the result of chronic inflammation and damage to liver cells. The functional

liver cells are replaced with scar tissue, which is a process called fibrosis.

Nodules of scar tissue form within the liver.

Fibrosis affects the structure and blood flow through the liver,

increasing the resistance in the vessels leading into the liver.

This increased resistance and pressure in the portal system, which feeds the liver,

is called portal hypertension.

Let's talk about the causes.

The four most common causes of liver cirrhosis and the key ones to remember are alcohol-related liver disease,

non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, hepatitis B and hepatitis C.

Crosis also has many rarer causes including autoimmune hepatitis, primary bilary cirrhosis, hemachromatosis, Wilson's disease,

alpha-1 antitripsin deficiency, cystic fibrosis, and drugs, for example amioderone,

methotrexate and sodium valprite.

Let's talk about the examination findings.

The signs of liver cirrhosis on examination include caccia, which is wasting of the body and the muscles,

jaundice, which is caused by a raised Billy Rubin,

hepatomegaly, which refers to an enlarged palpable liver, as the liver becomes more serotic,

it can become small and nodular and not palpable on examination, spleenomegaly, or an enlarged

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