The nomenclature of chronic active hepatitis: an obituary.

Use of the terms chronic active hepatitis, chronic persistent hepatitis, and chronic lobular hepatitis should be discontinued in favor of an etiologic terminology. Inflammatory activity and necrosis should be evaluated to grade the severity of the process whereas the degree of fibrosis should be used to determine the stage of the disease. Working groups and consensus meetings are needed to establish a widely acceptable current nomenclature and terminology. Once this has been achieved, introduction of the new names will depend on the support of the committees that compile coding manuals and on reviewers and editors of medical journals.