Liver Disease

What is Liver Disease?

Liver Disease refers to conditions that cause damage to the liver, which filters toxins from the blood. Chronic liver disease progresses in four stages:

Hepatitis — inflammation of the liver
Fibrosis — stiffening of the liver
Cirrhosis — scarring of the liver
Liver failure — the liver can no longer function

What Are the Symptoms of Liver Disease?

Chronic liver disease often develops without symptoms in the early stages. However, it may start with a sudden episode of acute hepatitis, causing a brief period of symptoms like fever, stomach pain, or nausea while the immune system fights the infection. If the infection isn’t fully cleared, it can turn into a chronic condition.

Other types of liver disease may also start with sudden symptoms or flare-ups that happen from time to time. In general, early symptoms of liver disease are often mild and hard to notice.

Some common signs and symptoms of liver disease include:

A yellowing of the skin and eyes, known as jaundice
Swelling in the stomach, lower legs, ankles, or feet
Bruising and bleeding easily
Nausea or loss of appetite
Severe itching
Dark urine or pale, clay-colored stool
Fatigue
Muscle cramps
Nail changes
Gallstones
Enlarged liver

Hepatic encephalopathy, a condition that occurs with severe liver disease that can cause changes in mood, sleep, and brain function

UR Medicine's Treatments for Liver Disease

Treatment for liver disease depends on the underlying cause. We provide a complete range of liver disease services, including transplant and non-transplant hepatology. We are able to see patients rapidly, often the very next day, and our providers make a practice of following up on patients throughout treatment.

UR Medicine’s Center for Liver Disease is experienced in the treatment of all diseases of the liver, including the following:

Hepatitis B and C
Fatty liver disease
Liver cancer
Metabolic liver disease
Alpha A antitrypsin deficiency
Hemochromatosis
Wilson's Disease
Alcoholic liver disease
Autoimmune liver disease
Primary biliary cirrhosis
Autoimmune hepatitis
Cirrhosis of the liver
Liver failure

We regularly serve as a valuable second (and even third and fourth) opinion resource for patients referred from far and wide. Other area hospitals and gastroenterologists often depend on our physicians to handle their most complex and challenging cases.

What Sets Us Apart?

UR Medicine’s Center for Liver Disease provides the most advanced and comprehensive services in the area for patients with liver disease. We offer our patients a unique combination of world-class treatments in a highly personal and accessible center.

We are a multidisciplinary center, so we can provide all the specialists you might need—including hepatologists, oncologists, rheumatologists, and others—without sending you to another center.

UR Medicine is the only liver transplant hospital in upstate New York and the only living donor transplant program—and our outcomes are among the best in the nation.