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General and Systemic Histopathology, C601&C602
     
    Slide 40: Liver with acute yellow atrophy
     
     
    Again, the mottled appearance of the tissue tells you there is some diffuse and generalized process at work.  I advise you to work your way down starting with the lowest power of magnification and see if you can identify anything that looks like a lobular pattern.  Then go for high power and see if you can spot triads and figure out what happened here.

    See this slide with the virtual microscope.

    Acute Yellow Atrophy is an old term, and not used much anymore. In this slide, so many hepatocytes have died and been removed, that it is hard to tell this is even liver. Most of what remains are bile ducts and triadal remnants. There is considerable inflammation and absolute absence of the usual lobular arrangement. If you are having trouble with this slide, you're in the majority; don't get too worried. This resulted from a toxic exposure of chloroform, but many other industrial volatiles can cause this same change. Clearly, this was an autopsy specimen. 


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