Recent advances in pathogenesis and management of pruritus in cholestatic liver disease / 临床肝胆病杂志

ABSTRACT

Pruritus is one of the common clinical manifestations of cholestatic liver diseases such as primary biliary cirrhosis,primary scle-rosing cholangitis,and intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy.Potential incentives of itching include bile salts,histamine,progesterone me-tabolites,endogenous opioid substances,and lysophosphatidic acid,according to previous studies.However,the exact pathogenesis of chol-estatic pruritus remains unclear,and the current treatment can only alleviate the symptoms in some of the patients.Novel methods for treating pruritus have been proposed and/or are being studied.The recent experimental and clinical studies on the pathogenesis and treatment of pru-ritus in cholestatic hepatitis are reviewed,in order to improve the understanding and management of cholestatic pruritus.