Enfermedad hepática inducida por alcohol

Abstract

Excessive alcohol intake is a worldwide problem. A high percentage of worldwide morbidity-mortality rates are associated to alcoholic liver disease, which comprehend a very wide clinical spectrum. Screening strategies are more important in earliest stages, when symptomatology is non-specific. Once abusive alcohol intake is detected, interventions aimed at decreasing alcohol intake as well as diagnostic tests have to be performed. So, in recent years non-invasive methods for the diagnosis of liver fibrosis, like elastography, have gained relevance. Alcohol abstinence is the treatment of alcoholic liver disease, conditioning prognosis both in early cirrhosis and in decompensated cirrhosis. A special type of alcoholic liver disease is the alcoholic hepatitis and its typical biochemical and histological features. Currently, corticoids are the only possible treatment for severe alcoholic hepatitis (mortality rates are high). Because corticoid therapy only has beneficial effect at short term and shows a low response rate, nowadays new therapies are being researched.