Chapter 56

Alcohol-related liver disease

Juan Pablo Arab

Juan Pablo Arab

Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Medicine School, Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, Santiago, Chile

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Stephen R. Atkinson

Stephen R. Atkinson

Department of Hepatology, Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction, Imperial College London, London, UK

The University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, PA, USA

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Ramon Bataller

Ramon Bataller

Center for Liver Diseases, Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition, Department of Medicine, Pittsburgh Liver Research Center, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

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First published: 25 February 2022

Summary

Alcohol-related liver disease (ALD) is the most frequent endorgan complication encountered among adults with prolonged heavy alcohol consumption. The majority of patients are diagnosed when they present to the healthcare service with advanced disease. AH is characterized by recent onset and often profound jaundice with additional features of liver failure. Unrecorded alcohol, noncommercially available alcoholic beverages such as “home brews” or “moonshine,” may account for up to a quarter of global alcohol consumption. Typically, the clinical course of ALD is silent until presentation with decompensated liver disease or a complication of cirrhosis or portal hypertension. The pathogenesis of AH is incompletely understood, in part due to the lack of animal models that reproduce the main clinical and histological features.

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