How to identify liver cirrhosis early? How is it different from liver fibrosis?

The development of chronic hepatitis to cirrhosis often indicates that the condition has advanced to the advanced stage. Because the treatment of liver cirrhosis is extremely difficult, it is not easy to treat and reverse liver cirrhosis with drugs. Therefore, timely detection of early cirrhosis and preventive treatment are powerful measures to control the progress of the disease. The following points can be referred to. 1. Edema of lower limbs: In the early stage, it is often manifested as mild edema of the foot surface and any joints, which often occurs after exercise or during the day and recovers after rest or lying down. Because the edema is slight and subsides quickly, it often cannot cause the patient's failure. 2. Abdominal distension and diarrhea: Due to impaired digestive function, people who rest often have abdominal distension after meals. Diarrhea does not show much at first, but appears after eating a high-protein or high-fat diet. With the development of the disease, abdominal distension and diarrhea become more and more serious. 3. Gloomy complexion: mainly related to pigment metabolism disorder and endocrine dysfunction in the body. At first, the face was dark and dull, and it gradually became worse. For a long time, it showed a dull face called "liver disease face". 4. Liver Huai and spider nevus: It is also caused by hormone metabolism disorder and endocrine disorder. The thenar and thenar of the patient's palm are red and gradually deepened, and finally a typical scarlet color appears, and some patients' fingertips can also appear. This situation is called "liver palm". "Spider nevus" is the area where the superior vena cava is distributed, such as the face, neck, upper chest, shoulders, back and other places where blood vessels expand. It looks like a spider on the outside and fades when it is pressed. Some patients may also be accompanied by vasodilation in other parts. If the above abnormal signs appear, you should go to the hospital for relevant examination as soon as possible, and take effective treatment and preventive measures as soon as possible to avoid its further development. There is only a small amount of fibrous substance in normal liver tissue, which plays the role of a scaffold to maintain the normal structure of the liver. The synthesis and degradation of these fibrous tissues are in dynamic balance. Hepatocyte injury, especially in chronic hepatitis stage, is stimulated by inflammatory factors, and hepatic stellate cells are activated to synthesize a large amount of extracellular matrix, resulting in a large amount of fibrous tissue deposition, which is called liver fibrosis. Hepatic fibrosis is a pathological process of development and change, and it is the only way for chronic hepatitis to develop into cirrhosis. There is a close relationship between them, but they are different concepts. Hepatic fibrosis is mainly the local proliferation and deposition of a large number of fibrous tissues between portal area and hepatic parenchymal cells. According to the degree of proliferation and deposition, fibrosis can be divided into four stages. The more serious the fibrosis stage is, the more obvious the fiber hyperplasia is. There were no false lobules and regenerative nodules in mild to moderate fibrosis stage. In the stage of liver cirrhosis, not only a large number of fibers proliferate and destroy the structure of hepatic lobules, but also hepatocytes regenerate in nodules and are divided into "false lobules" by fibers. The hepatocytes in the pseudolobule are stacked in layers, and there is no normal portal area. The internal emblem circulation of the liver was rebuilt, so the structure and function of the liver were seriously damaged. It is not difficult to see that liver fibrosis is the early pathological change of liver cirrhosis, and the sustainable development of fibrosis can eventually progress to liver cirrhosis. Liver fibrosis does not necessarily have cirrhosis in the early and middle stages, but cirrhosis must have severe liver fibrosis. The early and middle stages of liver fibrosis are reversible, while cirrhosis is generally difficult to reverse. Clinically, liver function may be normal or only slightly abnormal during liver fibrosis; In the stage of liver cirrhosis, especially in the active stage of the disease, in addition to obvious clinical symptoms, liver function often shows moderate and severe abnormalities.