Fine Structural Changes of the Liver

Abstract

The fine structural study of the normal and abnormal liver has brought to light many new structures, some that occur in every cell, and others, only erratically. While conventional histology concerns the alteration of cells, the new techniques concentrate on either chemical fractions of cells or their morphologic components, which we call organelles. Many observations have been made on the fine structure of the liver in experimental animals. Technical reasons, particularly restriction to biopsy material, account for a relative sparsity of electron microscopic observations on the human liver (1-8). The availability of many human liver biopsy specimens, encompassing a variety