


Chronic persistent hepatitis is usually diagnosed when someone does a liver
biopsy on a patient that has persistently elevated serum transaminases months
after a bout of acute viral hepatitis, or when someone is found to have
persistently elevated transaminases on routine screening tests. The degree of
elevation (in the serum transaminases) can be trivial, or as much as ten times
normal. Other blood chemistries are usually normal. 
As a rule, patients with CPH have no clinical signs of liver disease. 
Chronic active hepatitis can also be asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic, at
least initially, and that's why it's important to tell them apart by means of
a biopsy. The patient with CPH only needs to be reassured. The patient with
CAH needs to be treated.

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