Highlights
- •Liver cirrhosis accounts for more than one million deaths each year worldwide.
- •Of 2557 patients with chronic hepatitis observed in 2014, 32.6% had cirrhosis.
- •HCV was responsible of 58.6% of cases, HBV of 17.6% and alcohol abuse of 16.0%.
- •HCV and alcohol cases significantly decreased in the last two decades in Italy.
Abstract
Background
Previous cross-sectional studies have shown that hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection
had been the main agent associated with liver cirrhosis in Italy.
Aim
To assess epidemiological, laboratory and clinical features of liver cirrhosis in
Italy in 2014.
Patients
Out of the 2557 consecutive subjects evaluated in 16 hospitals located throughout
Italy in 2014, 832 (32.6%) had liver cirrhosis and were enrolled in this study.
Results
The mean age of subjects was 60.3 years, with a male/female ratio of 1.7; 74.9% of cases had Child A cirrhosis and 17.9%
superimposed hepatocellular carcinoma. HCV infection, alone or in combination with
other aetiologic agents, was responsible of 58.6% of cases, HBV aetiology accounted
for the 17.6% and alcohol abuse for the 16.0%. Compared with virus-related cirrhotic
patients, those alcohol-related more frequently showed decompensation (p = 0.02).
Conclusions
Compared to previous surveys performed in 1992 and in 2001, we observe a statistically
significant (p < 0.05) decreasing role of both HCV infection and alcohol abuse as aetiologic agents
of liver cirrhosis in Italy, explaining, at least in part, the slow, progressive decline
of the mortality rate for liver cirrhosis in the last decades in this country (from
34.5 deaths/100,000 inhabitants in1980 to 10.8 in 2012).
Abbreviations:
HBV (hepatitis B virus), HCV (hepatitis C virus), HCC (hepatitis delta virus (HDV) hepatocellular carcinoma), ISTAT (Italian Institute of Statistic), NAFLD (non-alcoholic fatty liver disease), NASH (non-alcoholic steatohepatitis)Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: November 08, 2016
Accepted:
October 17,
2016
Received in revised form:
September 21,
2016
Received:
June 16,
2016
Footnotes
☆Financial support: an unrestricted grant for the study was provided by Gilead.
Identification
Copyright
© 2016 European Federation of Internal Medicine. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
