Liver abscess can result from infections or penetrating injuries to the liver.
As with abscess elsewhere, an abscess of the liver is a circumscribed lesion with central liquefactive necrosis containing organisms and a surrounding area of hyperemia and intense inflammation. With improved care of intra-abdominal sepsis, pyogenic abscesses of the liver are uncommon. In developing countries, they are somewhat more common, usually as a result of parasitic infections. When the infection spreads to the liver through the vascular route, abscesses can be multiple. More commonly, when they result from spread of infection from elsewhere, abscesses are solitary.