Acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF) is a severe clinical entity associated with elevated short-term mortality. We aimed to characterize patients with decompensated cirrhosis according to presence ...of ACLF, their association with active alcohol intake, and long-term survival in Latin America.
Retrospective cohort study of decompensated cirrhotic in three Chilean university centers (2017-2019). ACLF was diagnosed according EASL-CLIF criteria. We assessed survival using competing-risk and time-to-event analyses. We evaluated the time to death using accelerated failure time (AFT) models.
We included 320 patients, median age of 65.3±11.7 years old, and 48.4% were women. 92 (28.7%) patients met ACLF criteria (ACLF-1: 29.3%, ACLF-2: 27.1%, and ACLF-3: 43.4%). The most common precipitants were infections (39.1%), and the leading organ failure was kidney (59.8%). Active alcohol consumption was frequent (27.7%), even in patients with a prior diagnosis of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) (16.2%). Ninety-two (28.7%) patients had ACLF (ACLF-1: 8.4%, ACLF-2: 7.8%, and ACLF-3: 12.5%). ACLF patients had a higher MELD-Na score at admission (27 22-31 versus 16 12-21, p<0.0001), a higher frequency of alcohol-associated liver disease (36.7% versus 24.9%, p=0.039), and a more frequent active alcohol intake (37.2% versus 23.8%, p=0.019). In a multivariate model, ACLF was associated with higher mortality (subdistribution hazard ratio 1.735, 95%CI: 1.153-2.609; p<0.008). In the AFT models, the presence of ACLF during hospitalization correlated with a shorter time to death: ACLF-1 shortens the time to death by 4.7 times (time ratio TR 0.214, 95%CI: 0.075-0.615; p<0.004), ACLF-2 by 4.4 times (TR 0.224, 95%CI: 0.070-0.713; p<0.011), and ACLF-3 by 37 times (TR 0.027, 95%CI: 0.006-0.129; p<0.001).
Patients with decompensated cirrhosis and ACLF exhibited a high frequency ofactive alcohol consumption. Patients with ACLF showed higher mortality and shorter time todeath than those without ACLF.
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the third most common cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. We aimed to explore HCC-related population-wide public health policies (PHP) worldwide.
We conducted ...a 43-item survey about HCC: policies and civil society (18 questions), clinical guidelines (5 questions), epidemiology (7 questions), and care management (13 questions). The survey was completed electronically (2022–2023). Data were collected in a spreadsheet, revised by two independent reviewers, and verified with governmental institutions, regulatory agencies, scientific societies, and scientific publications. We classified policies into eight dimensions, including criteria for low, moderate, and strong PHP establishment. We estimated an index using multiple correspondence analysis.
We obtained 134 responses from 66 countries/territories (Africa N=16, the Americas N=18, Asia N=10, Europe N=21, and Oceania N=1). The median index was 43.7 IQR: 30.9–59.3. The lower scores were observed in Sierra Leone (0), Lebanon (5.5), and Pakistan (5.5), while Italy (79.7), Brazil (94.1), and Sweden (100) obtained the highest scores (Figure). In particular, 46 (69.7%) countries had a written national cancer strategy or action plan, but only 5 (7.6%) had a specific written national strategy or action plan on HCC. Thirty-two (48.5%) countries had national clinical practice guidelines on HCC and 54 (81.8%) countries had a national disease registry that included HCC. The most common strategies for staging HCC were Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC)(85%) and TNM classification (10%). The survey reflects important differences in the availability of treatments, including surgery (98.4%), tyrosine kinase inhibitors (95.1%), chemoembolization (85.2%), radiofrequency or alcohol ablation (82%), immunotherapy plus anti-VEGF (82%), liver transplant (74.2%), stereotactic body radiation therapy (42.6%), and radioembolization (36.4%).
The existence of PHP on HCC is insufficient worldwide. The most common strategy for staging is BCLC, but there are important differences in treatment availability across countries, especially regarding curative therapies.
Alcohol-associated hepatitis (AH) is a severe entity with a mortality of up to 30–50% at 1 month. Pentoxifylline combined with steroids has not demonstrated benefits in severe AH. Some studies have ...suggested that pentoxifylline may be beneficial in the subgroup of patients with acute kidney injury (AKI) and AH. However, there is no solid evidence of its benefit in mortality in this setting. This study aimed to determine the benefit of the use of pentoxifylline in patients with severe AH and AKI.
Global retrospective cohort study, including patients with severe AH and AKI at admission (2009–2019). We used competing-risk models with liver transplantation as a competing risk to assess the potential effect of pentoxifylline.
We included 655 patients with severe AH and AKI (30 centers from 10 countries). Median age was 48±11.6 years, 26.2% were females, and 52.5% were Caucasian. Around 68.7% of the patients had a prior history of cirrhosis, and 6.6% underwent liver transplantation. The MELD score on admission was 34 15–74. 43.2% of the patients used corticosteroids, while only 6.9% used pentoxifylline during hospitalization. In the univariate analysis, the variables independently associated with mortality were the female sex (sHR 0.740; 95%IC:0.577–0.948; p=0.018), MELD (sHR 1.034; 95%IC: 1.020–1048; p<0.001), MELD 3.0 (sHR 1.034,95%IC:1.018–1.049, p<0.001), Maddrey's discriminant function (sHR 1.005, 95%IC:1.003–1.008, p<0.001), serum albumin at admission (sHR 0.756; 95%IC:0.642–0.890; p=0.001), bilirubin at admission (sHR 1.011; 95%IC:1.003–1.019, p=0.006), serum creatinine (sHR 1.083; 95%IC:1.028–1.140, p=0.002) and pentoxifylline use (sHR 1.531, 95%IC:1.107–2.119; p=0.010)(Table). In the multivariate-adjusted model, the use of pentoxifylline was associated with increased mortality (sHR 1.620, 95%IC:1.190–2.204; p=0.002).
The use of pentoxifylline has no benefit in terms of mortality and could decrease survival in patients with AH and AKI.
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) affects 20-25% of the general population and is associated with morbidity, increased mortality, and elevated health-care costs. Most NAFLD risk factors are ...modifiable and, therefore, potentially amenable to being reduced by public health policies. To date, there is no information about NAFLD-related public health policies in the Americas. In this study, we analysed data from 17 American countries and found that none have established national public health policies to decrease NAFLD-related burden. There is notable heterogeneity in the existence of public health policies to prevent NAFLD-related conditions. The most common public health policies were related to diabetes (15 88% countries), hypertension (14 82% countries), cardiovascular diseases (14 82% countries), obesity (nine 53% countries), and dyslipidaemia (six 35% of countries). Only seven (41%) countries had a registry of the burden of NAFLD, and efforts to raise awareness in the Americas were scarce. The implementation of public health policies are urgently needed in the Americas to decrease the burden of NAFLD.
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