Left hepatic vein
Vena hepatica sinistra · Levá jaterní žíla
Veins
Looks like
Large veins (right, middle and left) running through the liver to join the inferior vena cava just below the diaphragm.
What it does
Drain cleaned blood from the liver into the vena cava and on to the heart.
Keeping it well
A clot here (Budd–Chiari syndrome) causes a swollen belly and liver pain. Surgeons plan liver resections around these veins.
Related conditions
- Acute liver failure
- Acute porphyria
- Alcohol withdrawal and delirium tremens
- Alcohol-related liver disease
- Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency
- Autoimmune hepatitis
- Bile duct cancer (cholangiocarcinoma)
- Biliary atresia
- Brucellosis
- Chronic venous insufficiency
- Cirrhosis
- Clotting disorders (thrombophilia & APS)
- Deep vein thrombosis
- Dengue & mosquito-borne fevers
- Ebola virus disease
- Echinococcosis (hydatid disease)
- Eye melanoma (uveal melanoma)
- Gilbert's syndrome
- Haemochromatosis & Wilson's disease
- Hepatic encephalopathy
- High cholesterol
- Intestinal worms & schistosomiasis
- Intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy
- Leishmaniasis
- Leptospirosis (Weil's disease)
- Liver abscess (pyogenic and amoebic)
- Liver cancer (hepatocellular carcinoma)
- Malaria
- Metabolic fatty liver disease (MASLD)
- Metabolic syndrome
- Myelofibrosis
- Newborn jaundice
- Phenylketonuria (PKU)
- Poisoning & overdose
- Portal vein thrombosis and Budd–Chiari syndrome
- Primary biliary cholangitis
- Primary sclerosing cholangitis
- Varicose veins
- Viral hepatitis (A, B, C, D, E)
- Yellow fever