[Significance of hepatic biopsy specimens in the diagnosis of liver disease in babies of the first year of life].

The paper gives the results of a histological study of 21 liver biopsy specimens from babies of the first year of life, who had clinical manifestations of neonatal hepatitis with cholestasis syndrome. The major morphological variants of hepatic lesion, such as giant-cell hepatitis, chronic active hepatitis, congenital cystic fibrosis with extensive intrahepatic cholestasis and a high hepatic inflammatory-necrotic activity have been found to result in the early development of severe hepatic fibrosis and cirrhosis, which is of great prognostic value. It is necessary to enhance the efficiency of a histological assessment of an etiological factor in the hepatic biopsy specimen in order to optimize treatment for liver diseases in this category of patients.