Search

Introduction: The excessive and prolonged consumption of alcohol is associated with a high morbidity due to hepatic disorders and affections of other organs. Objective: To specify the hepatic lesions and their relationship with other diseases associated with alcohol and the nutritional state in patients with alcoholic hepatic disease. Methods: An observational, descriptive and cross-sectional study of 270 patients with alcoholic hepatic disease was carried out. They were assisted in the Internal Medicine Service and in the specialized visit of Hepatology from Saturnino Lora Teaching Clinical Surgical Provincial Hospital in Santiago de Cuba who were clinically examined to detect symptoms and signs of hepatic disease and those associated with alcohol in different systems, during the decade 2010-2019. Results: There was a prevalence of men (234), of which 117 were in the group of 25 - 44 years of age. The preponderant clinical form was the hepatic cirrhosis in 109 patients, an important proportion of them were drinkers with more than 20 years of exhibition to the habit. The disease due to gastroesophagic reflux along with the forms of gastropathy and polyneuropathy in 89 and 96 affected patients, respectively, were the comorbidities more associated with the hepatic lesion. Different degrees of malnutrition were observed in 167 affected patients (61.8 %), of which those with hepatic cirrhosis prevailed, of these 51 (49.0 %) presented moderate malnutrition and 31 (49.2 %) a serious one. Conclusions: The presence of comorbidities in patients with alcoholic hepatic disease is high, which is associated to the nutritional deterioration and a prolong exposure to the harmful habit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction Cirrhosis is an irreversible disease, with high mortality and varied etiology. The most associated causes are alcohol abuse, hepatitis B and C viruses and autoimmune liver disease. Objective To describe the clinical and demographic characteristics of patients with liver cirrhosis at the Gustavo Nelson Collado Ríos Hospital. January- December 2019. Methodology An observational, descriptive and retrospective study was carried out, in which 42 clinical records of patients with liver cirrhosis who attended their appointments with the Gastroenterology service in 2019 were reviewed. Results The age group with the highest number of cases was 60-69 years with a predominance of the female gender. The most frequent associated factors were diabetes mellitus 2 (62%), overweight (38%), obesity (33%), alcohol habit (19%), autoimmune liver disease (12%), and hepatitis B virus (7%). We calculated a fatality of 20% for this cohort, a median survival of 2 years for patients alive at the time of the study, and a median survival of 18 months for patients who died in 2019. Conclusion In the central provinces of Panama, we observed a downward trend in cases of cirrhosis due to alcoholic and viral etiology, with an increase in metabolic diseases predominantly in the female gender that cause long-term liver damage. Cirrhosis is still a disease of high lethality; however, with a survival that exceeds 2 years if the patient is well treated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hepatic transplant is a therapeutic option almost never contemplated in patients that suffer alcoholic hepatic cirrhosis. An important reason of surgeons rejection is that they consider to this type of patient as improbable for later rehabilitation after liver transplant and they are considered as low priority for this type of therapeutic option although alcoholic hepatic cirrhosis occupies one of the first places of hepatic pathologies. Results obtained by several groups of investigators in the world have demonstrated that hepatic transplant in a patient with alcoholic hepatic cirrhosis has better possibilities of survival than patient with another type of hepatic illness who receive a liver transplant. Success of transplant depends mainly on psychological and family support that patient receives to avoid ingestion of ethanol as much as possible. This way, a patient that suffers alcoholic hepatic cirrhosis can be a good candidate for hepatic transplant if receives an integral attention that contemplates the medical, psychological and social sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Adicciones is the property of Sociedad Cientifica Espanola de Estudios sobre el Alcohol and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)