Syncytial Giant-Cell Hepatitis: Sporadic Hepatitis with Distinctive Pathological Features, a Severe Clinical Course, and Paramyxoviral Features

IN this paper, we describe 10 patients seen over a six-year period with acute and chronic hepatitis in whom liver-biopsy specimens were characterized by the presence of giant multinucleated syncytial hepatocytes. Giant cells are a common pathological finding in liver disorders in infants and very young children, but they are not common in adults. Large syncytial giant hepatocytes have rarely been described in patients at any age, and their association with intracytoplasmic structures consistent with paramyxoviral nucleocapsids, found in 8 of the 10 cases reported here, has never to our knowledge been described. The clinical and pathological features of this . . .