Complications of Cirrhosis

Cirrhosis is extensive scarring (fibrosis) of the liver that is characteristic of late-stage liver disease. It can lead to a range of complications, from easy bruising or bleeding to a build-up of toxins in the brain to potentially fatal medical problems such as liver cancer and kidney failure.

In fact, more than a million people throughout the world die from complications of cirrhosis each year. Forty thousand of those fatalities occur in the United States, making cirrhosis the 11th leading cause of death in the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Liver disease can be tricky, however. In the early stages, which can last for years or even decades, the spread of fibrosis may bring about no obvious symptoms and so it may be only when complications arise that it becomes obvious that liver damage has progressed to cirrhosis.

The scarring that eventually leads to cirrhosis and its complications is largely due to inflammation caused by persistent and ongoing damage to the liver. This damage can be the result of a number of health problems. The most common of these are:

• Chronic heavy drinking of alcohol
• Hepatitis (in particular types B and C)
• Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

There also are a handful of less common causes of cirrhosis. These include obstructed bile ducts of the liver and gallbladder, autoimmune hepatitis, and hereditary conditions such as Wilson's disease or hemochromatosis.​

Although a healthy liver is able to repair itself, once it becomes cirrhotic the damage is irrevocable. Extensive scarring inhibits blood flow to the liver which in turn compromises its primary normal functions—namely, processing nutrients from food, making bile, removing toxins such as bilirubin (the reddish-brown compound that results from the breakdown of red blood cells) from the blood, and building proteins.

It's easy to see how serious complications, including liver failure, can develop as a result of cirrhosis.