What is hepatomegaly? It means your liver is larger than normal or enlarged. Hepatomegaly is not a disease, but a symptom of another health condition.
Your liver is in the upper right side of the abdomen, under the rib cage. Normally it’s difficult to feel. However, with an enlargement it’s easier to find. And might be tender when touched.
Symptoms
If your liver is only mildly enlarged, you may not have additional symptoms. Moderate to severe hepatomegaly may cause nausea, vomiting and upper abdominal pain symptoms. And certain health conditions creating its increased size could cause you to experience fatigue, fever, itchy skin, jaundice and dark colored urine.
Causes
Hepatomegaly can be caused by a wide variety of conditions, for example:
- tumor
- leukemia
- carcinoma
- sarcoidosis
- mononucleosis
- biliary cirrhosis
- Reye syndrome
- fatty liver disease
- biliary obstruction
- sclerosing cholangitis
- excessive alcohol use
- Budd Chiari syndrome
- Niemann-Pick disease
- congestive heart failure
- hepatitis, viral hepatitis
- glycogen storage disease
- hereditary fructose intolerance
Hepatomegaly treatment depends on the reason your liver became enlarged.
