[Paucity of interlobular bile ducts in twins and maternal abuse of psychopharmaceuticals during pregnancy].

We report the case of twins with intrahepatic cholestasis in "paucity of interlobular bile ducts". Both the children presented an associated cardiac defect even if dissimilar and a transient tubulopathy. Despite the presence of these alterations we suppose that these cases can be included among the group of rare nonsyndromic paucity of interlobular bile ducts. The different extent of the pathology in the two patients suggest a toxic etiology which could have struck more severely the twin who were less protected by the utero-placental barrier. In the literature reports we found some cases of extrahepatic biliary atresia related with maternal amphetamine addiction, but no cases of intrahepatic atresia. As during pregnancy the mother had abused of a number of drugs and in particular of amphetamine, we suppose that the amphetamine addiction can account for the hepatic pathology.