People with chronic hepatitis B or C generally experience mild symptoms, primarily fatigue, at first. Many years later, however, the complications of cirrhosis may appear. The symptoms for autoimmune hepatitis vary from mild to serious. Most patients are young women, but postmenopausal women and males may also be affected. The trigger for autoimmune hepatitis is unknown, but the damage to the liver is caused by the individual's lymphocytes produced by the immune system, and by antibodies produced in the individual's own tissue.
Autoimmune hepatitis is often a progressive disease resulting in cirrhosis.
Hepatitis D may cause acute hepatitis in someone who is a carrier of the hepatitis B virus. The combination of hepatitis B and D is potentially more serious then hepatitis B alone and is more likely to cause serious chronic hepatitis and cirrhosis. IV drug users have a high incidence of hepatitis D. Viruses of the herpes family, which cause cold sores, genital herpes, chicken pox, shingles and infectious mononucleosis, can cause acute hepatitis, especially when the immune system is not functioning properly. It is unlikely that they will produce chronic hepatitis. Other viruses, as yet undiscovered, may be responsible for some cases of chronic hepatitis.