Hepatotoxicity

The largest organ in the human body is the liver which captures 2 to 3% of the human body weight, located on the right side of the anterior quadrant in the abdomen and below the anterior hemidiaphragm ribcage. It performs various important functions such as digestion of food, protein production, fluid production, detoxification of waste, etc. Liver injury known as liver trauma can be categorized into four types: hepatocellular, autoimmune, cholestatic and infiltrative. Drug-induced liver injury can match with any form of acute or chronic liver injury. Acute injury to the liver is mainly due to the action of cytochrome P450, which disintegrates drugs into electrophiles or free radicals; these reactive metabolites can covalently act on protein and unsaturated fatty acids for induction of lipid peroxidation which leads to calcium homeostasis or death. Toxicology of the liver is a complex concept that entails either concurrent as well as sequential events. These events determine the pathways, severity and effects of liver injury. Pharmacogenetics has made great progress in current years which indicates the creation of refined algorithms that take drug, host and environmental risk variables into account, allowing for the selection of better medicine based on accurate risk-benefit ratio calculations. In this chapter, we will discuss the anatomy, functions of the liver, types of liver injury, risk factors, and various treatment strategies for the treatment of liver diseases.