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The clinical course of alcoholic cirrhosis: development of comorbid diseases. A Danish nationwide cohort study
Author(s) -
Jepsen Peter,
Lash Timothy L.,
Vilstrup Hendrik
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
liver international
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.873
H-Index - 110
eISSN - 1478-3231
pISSN - 1478-3223
DOI - 10.1111/liv.13151
Subject(s) - comorbidity , medicine , hazard ratio , cirrhosis , alcoholic liver disease , cancer , cancer registry , hepatocellular carcinoma , cohort , cohort study , diabetes mellitus , confidence interval , endocrinology
Abstract Background & Aims We aimed to determine associations between alcoholic cirrhosis and incidence of comorbidity, and to describe the clinical course of alcoholic cirrhosis in terms of comorbidity development. The comorbid diseases we studied were acute myocardial infarction, heart failure, peripheral arterial disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, chronic kidney disease, epilepsy, diabetes and cancer. Methods This was a registry‐based nationwide historical cohort study. We included 10 650 Danish citizens diagnosed with alcoholic cirrhosis at age 45–69 years in 1994–2014 and 43 150 age‐ and gender‐matched persons. None of them had the comorbid diseases we studied at inclusion. We compared rates and cumulative risks of comorbidity development between patients and controls. Results Patients with alcoholic cirrhosis had a higher rate of comorbidity (hazard ratio for any comorbidity = 3.74, 95% CI 3.56–3.94), including all the non‐cancer comorbidities (hazard ratio for any non‐cancer comorbidity = 4.33, 95% CI 4.06–4.62) except acute myocardial infarction. They also had a higher rate of developing cancer (hazard ratio = 2.94, 95% CI 2.70–3.19). Still, relatively few patients actually lived to experience development of non‐cancer (10‐year risk: 21.4% vs. 13.2% for controls) or cancer comorbidity (10‐year risk: 10.9% vs. 10.0%) because they died before they developed any comorbid disease. Hepatocellular carcinoma and oropharyngeal cancer were the only two comorbidities that were much more likely to develop in patients than in controls. Conclusions Alcoholic cirrhosis promotes development of several comorbid diseases, but only few patients with alcoholic cirrhosis live long enough to actually develop them.