Histopathology of the Liver, Gall Bladder and Pancreas

Liver biopsies are common in clinical practice for a variety of reasons in the work-up of diverse disorders ranging from congenital disorders like ‘storage diseases’ to inflammatory conditions in particular for grading and staging of ‘chronic hepatitis’ to autoimmune disorders affecting intrahepatic bile ducts. Another common challenge on core needle biopsies of the liver is to differentiate ‘hepatocellular carcinoma’ from liver metastases which may originate from a large number of organs in both genders. As liver transplantation is getting pace biopsies from live allografts are also becoming common. As for gall bladder, almost all biopsy specimens are ‘cholecystectomies’, performed due to gall stones, and only occasionally associated dysplasia or malignancy is seen. Pancreatic biopsies or resections are also not uncommon for both more commonly seen ‘pancreatic adenocarcinoma’ arising from pancreatic ducts to ‘neuroendocrine tumours’. In this chapter all common and relatively uncommon entities from this anatomical region are described with salient light microscopic features and ancillary testing where necessary.