Weil's disease (leptospirosis) manifesting as fulminant hepatic failure: Report of an autopsy case

We report an autopsy case of a 60-year-old man with Weil's disease who died of fulminant hepatic failure. Ante-mortem blood culture yielded the growth of Leptospira interrogans (serovar icterohaemorrhagiae). At autopsy, the liver weighed 1210 g and showed a typical appearance of “acute yellow liver atrophy”. Zone 3 (centrilobular region) showed submassive necrosis of hepatocytes accompanied by marked hemorrhage. Hepatocytes in zones 1 and 2 were well preserved, and the leptospira antigen was immunohistochemically demonstrated in several hepatocytes. Dissociation of liver cell plates was not observed. An immunohistochemical study demonstrated that CD31-positive, sinusoidal endothelial cells had almost completely disappeared in zone 3. This finding suggested that severe and selective damage to endothelial cells in zone 3 was the main cause of the submassive hepatocellular necrosis, which led to fulminant hepatic failure in the present case.