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It’s no secret that excessive alcohol consumption is dangerous to the liver; that’s exactly why patients with hepatitis C are advised to steer clear of it. But more precise outcomes in this population who do partake in light-to-moderate drinking hasn’t been fully understood.
A collaborative team of researchers from Belgium and Switzerland set out to find how alcohol intake and viral eradication impacted the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), decompensation of cirrhosis, and death.
The analysis included 192 patients with compensated hepatitis C-related cirrhosis. Out of these patients, 74 of them consumed alcohol with a median intake of 15 g per day – one standard drink in the United States is equivalent to 14 g of alcohol, such as a 12-ounce beer or five ounces of wine.A total of 68 patients reached viral eradication. But over the following 58 months, 33 patients were diagnosed with HCC, 53 experienced at least one decompensation event, and 39 died.
When looking at the HCC rate, 10.6% of the cases came from abstainers and 23.8% came from consumers of alcohol, “and 2% vs. 21.7% in patients with and without viral eradication, respectively,” the authors specified.