25243              PORTAL CIRRHOSIS

The patient was a man aged 52 with a long history of chronic alcoholism with episodes of haematemesis and melaena.  He died after a further melaena.

The specimen consists of two slices of liver.  The cut surface shows small irregular partly confluent islands of regenerated bile-stained liver tissue forming large conglomerate areas 2-3 cms in diameter separated by bands of congested fibrous tissue.  The surface of the liver is finely granular and the capsule is thickened.  Histology shows unusually small islands of liver cells embedded in dense fibrous tissue.