Posthepatitic cirrhosis clinically simulating extrahepatic biliary obstruction (so-called 'primary biliary cirrhosis')

IT has long been recognized that parenchymal liver disease clinically can simulate obstruction of extrahepatic biliary radicles.1 , 2 Clinical and laboratory manifestations of obstruction are occasionally encountered in postnecrotic and Laennec's cirrhosis,3 hemochromatosis,4 viral5 6 7 and toxic hepatitis,8 9 10 11 12 granulomas,13 lymphoma,13 metastatic carcinoma13 , 14 and amyloidosis.13 In addition, some patients with normal extrahepatic bile ducts and clinical and laboratory evidence of obstructive jaundice have been classified as having a distinctive clinicopathological entity15 16 17 18 19 20 21 that is variously termed "primary biliary cirrhosis,"15 "cholangiolitic cirrhosis,"22 "pericholangiolitic biliary cirrhosis,"16 "chronic obliterating cholangitis,"23 "hypertrophic cirrhosis of Hanot"24 and "xanthomatous biliary cirrhosis."25 The characteristic clinical features of this condition include chronic . . .