Ascites

In medicine (gastroenterology), ascites is a accumulation of fluid in the peritoneal cavity. Although unpleasant, it is not intrinsically harmful. Nevertheless, its causes and complications are both significant medical problems.

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Mild ascites is hard to notice, but severe ascites leads to abdominal distension. In patients with ascites, a doctor will attempt to identify causes, such as a history of liver disease, other signs of portal hypertension or signs of tuberculosis or nephrotic syndrome.

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A proportion of chronic ascites patients also develop hepatic hydrothrorax, e.g. unilateral pleural effusion (mainly right-sided) due to liver disease, and many have para-umbilical herniations of the abdominal wall.

Medicine: Medicine is a branch of health science concerned with maintaining human health and restoring it by treating disease and injury; it is both an area of knowledge, a science of body systems and diseases and their treatment, and the applied practice of that knowledge....

Gastroenterology: Gastroenterology or Gastrology might be better described as the field of digestive diseases, which are traditionally separated by anatomic or functional category. For example, disorders of the esophagus might be listed under "esophagus" and also included in a description of motility disorders (disor...

Peritoneal cavity: The peritoneal cavity is a potential space between the parietal peritoneum and visceral peritoneum, that is, the two membranes that separate the organs in the abdominal cavity from the abdominal wall. It is one of the spaces derived from the coelomic cavity of the embryo, the others being the pleur...