The pattern of liver disease in Indian children: a review of 128 biopsied cases.

We report the pattern of childhood liver disease revealed by a study of 134 biopsies obtained from 128 infants and children below the age of 16 years seen in this hospital during a 3-year period. The most common histological diagnoses were neonatal hepatitis syndrome in 23, storage disorders in 11, and cirrhosis in 26 children. Less common diagnoses included Reye's syndrome in four, fatty liver in seven, granulomas in four, and chronic active hepatitis, fulminant hepatitis, congenital hepatic fibrosis and neoplasms in two children each. Miscellaneous specific diagnoses were made in 16 cases. Twenty-three per cent of the liver biopsies were non-diagnostic. The study has provided background information on the occurrence of specific histological diagnoses in liver biopsies in infants and children in this tropical region and identifies a group with cirrhosis and copper deposition which was not typical of either Indian childhood cirrhosis or Wilson's disease.