Necrosis of primary functional cells

Nevertheless, it is certain from microscopic examinations of liver biopsy samples, and chemical measurements on blood in over a hundred asymptomatic patients with Wilson s disease, that the accumulation of hepatic copper is accompanied by structural and functional damage to the liver. At some time between the middle of the first and fifth decades of life necrosis of the primary functional cells of the liver results from this organ s overload of copper ). 

Death of hepatic cells may be so massive that severe hepatitis may end the patient s life within weeks of the first clinical symp-ton. Even when the hepatitis is not fatal it is often accompanied by the release into blood of sufficient copper from damaged hepa-tocytes to cause copper-induced hemolysis of so many erythrocytes that anemia results J). 

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See also in sourсe #XX -- [ ]

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