Immunology of Liver Disease

The role of the immune response in both the pathology of liver disease and in the modulation ofliver injury has been the subject of intense research. Further chapters are devoted to the three major autoimmune liver diseases which are thought to be the result of loss of tolerance to autologous liver tissue. The contributions to this book examine the role of the immune response in liver disease. The book is divided into three sections and there are two introductory chapters: one discussing viral immunopathology and the other autoimmune disease. Three chapters are devoted to viral hepatitis infections, the immune responses engendered by each virus and the pathogenesis of the diseases they cause. One author reviews the use of immunotherapy in hepatocellular carcinoma. Two chapters then review the recent advances in the identification and characterization of autoantibodies and their cytoplasmic antigens. These concentrate on current experimental approaches using molecular biological techniques to identify the structures recognized by disease-specific autoantibodies. The third section has a chapter reviewing the immune mechanisms in alcoholic liver disease and a chapter examining the immune reactions provoked by hepatotoxic drugs.