Needle-shaped Liver Cell Inclusions Represent a Specific Diagnostic Feature of Porphyria Cutanea Tarda

Abstract

Needle-shaped cytoplasmic liver cell inclusions are considered to represent a feature typical of porphyria cutanea tarda (PCT). Histological sections of 849 liver biopsies were stained with ferricyanide reduction reaction for demonstration of the inclusions.

They were detected in 18 cases, and in all of them the diagnosis PCT was clinically and/or biochemically confirmed. In our group of patients, PCT was associated with alcoholic liver disease in three cases, with chronic hepatitis C in three cases and with hepatocellular carcinoma in two cases.

In the liver with hepatocellular carcinoma, the inclusions were present only in non-neoplastic liver tissue, not in the tumourous tissue. No inclusions were found in the liver tissue of patients without clinical signs of PCT.