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ONE of the most frustrating features of primary biliary cirrhosis is pruritus, often so intense and unrelenting that the victim seriously contemplates suicide.1 Such patients suffer from chronic insomnia and irritability, and their bodies become covered with excoriations from uncontrollable scratching. Attempts to control the intolerable itching with sedatives, analgesics, glucocorticoids and methyltestosterone have met with little success. Recently, norethandrolone has been reported fairly effective in relieving the pruritus; however, its administration is associated with deepening jaundice and other side effects.2 3 4 Bile acids accumulate in the blood of patients with primary biliary cirrhosis, and it has been proposed that the . . .
Itallie et al. (Thu,) studied this question.