Viral hepatitis: the quiet disease.

• Author: Thiel, Thelma King

Pick up a newspaper anywhere in this country and you are likely to find a story about how viruses are invading and destroying major computer programs that control communication networks, municipal power plants, and waste disposal systems. Hepatitis viruses have been causing equally devastating damage to million of individuals' personal waste disposal system -- the liver. This viral-induced shutdown can have an impact on more than 5,000 vital life-preserving functions the liver performs 24 hours a day, silently and efficiently.

Most people are unaware of the important role the liver plays. Some of its tasks include removing toxins from drugs, alcohol, and environmental pollutants; producing clotting factors; metabolizing protein to build muscles, generating bile to aid digestion and help the body absorb nutrients; manufacturing immune factors and hormones; and storing energy. The liver is the body's internal chemical refinery, processing everything we eat. breathe, or absorb through our skin. It is probably the most overworked and misunderstood organ in our body.

Hepatitis viruses A, B, C. D, and E attack healthy liver cells. causing internal destruction. Sometimes, in hepatitis B, C, and D, the development of scar tissue occurs, called cirrhosis. In essence. the workers in the body's power plant are being destroyed, one by one, until there are not enough left to perform the tasks the liver was created to do. In medical terms, this is known as end-stage liver disease, leading to liver failure and death.

If the liver is such a vital organ, why are most Americans unaware of its importance? Why is so little known about this biological miracle worker? The main reason is that the liver is a non-complaining organ, and thus is its own worst enemy by being a silent workhorse. Often, the first and only sign of a liver disordered is extreme fatigue. All too frequently, that fatigue is blamed on other factors. such as stress or overexertion.

Funding for research to improve the understanding of the physiology and diseases of the liver was abysmally low until the National Commission on Digestive Diseases alerted Congress to the problem in the late 1970s. Since then, funding gradually has increased. However, while Federal funding for AIDS research totals well over $1,000,000,000 annually, $40,000,000 is spent each year to find more effective treatments and cures for viral hepatitis. Nevertheless, with the development of vaccines for hepatitis A and B, improved diagnostic measures to identify several hepatitis viruses, increased success rates for liver transplants, and the advent of patient advocacy groups, liver diseases finally have begun to receive some well-deserved attention.

My personal interest in liver diseases was motivated by the loss of my four-year-old son, Dean, 27 years ago. Born with a rare and incurable liver disease called biliary atresia, he suffered with interminable itching two fractured hips, jaundice of his skin almost to the point of appearing green, a greatly distended abdomen. and diarrhea...