Autoimmune liver disease in a Nigerian woman

Autoimmune liver diseases are chronic liver disease with similar clinical features to viral and non-autoimmune liver disorders but with distinct sero-autoimmunologic features. In developed countries, it accounts for about 20% of all liver transplantations in the USA. Most studies on liver disease in Nigeria centred on viral or alcohol aetiology with complete absence of data on autoimmune liver disease.
We here report a case of a young woman with autoimmune hepatitis for the first time in Nigeria. The patient presented with features of chronic liver disease of neither viral nor alcoholic aetiology. The diagnosis was based on the presence of hyper-gammaglobulinaemia and auto-antibodies in the serum.
We concluded that physicians should always bear in mind the possibility of autoimmune hepatitis in patients with features of chronic liver disease, especially when the viral markers are negative and there is no history of significant alcohol consumption.