Causes, Risk Factors, And Complications Of Primary Biliary Cholangitis

Bacterial/Fungal/Parasitic Infections

Bacterial, fungal, and parasitic infections may play a small part in primary biliary cholangitis. Chronic infections can cause the immune system to function at a lower or distorted level allowing it to mistake the body’s cells for disease-causing microbes. The immune system uses T-cells to fight off fungal and some bacterial infections. Individuals with primary biliary cholangitis have abnormally low T-cell counts circulating throughout the body. It can also be noted many patients have elevated antibodies for certain viruses. These antibodies, left behind from prior infections, may be mistakenly identifying liver cells as infectious agents. This is most likely due to similar protein receptors on both cells. Further studies are required, because researchers still do not have a definitive answer as to what causes primary biliary cholangitis.

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Portal Hypertension

Portal hypertension is a term used to describe when the blood pressure in a portal vein becomes too high. Blood pressure is the measurement of the force of blood on the walls of blood vessels as it is traveling through them. Biliary cholangitis causes the backup of bile into the tissues of the liver. Bile backup in the liver tissues can be toxic, damaging, and can destroy the cells that make up the organ. Liver tissues are repaired by the body when a mechanism like this causes damage but replaces the damaged tissue with a more fibrous type of tissue. When the liver develops scar tissue or fibrosis, the portal vein can no longer expand to accommodate the high volumes of blood flowing through it from the spleen, pancreas, and intestine. This malfunction causes the large volumes of blood to push with more force through the portal vein to pass through the liver, which causes an impaired ability to filter toxins and drugs from the bloodstream and portal hypertension.

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