LIVER CIRRHOSIS: NEW RESEARCHS

Abstract

Liver fibrosis and its end stage, cirrhosis, represent enormous worldwide healthcare problems. In the United Kingdom, more than two thirds of the 4000 people who died of cirrhosis in 1999 were under 65, and the incidence of cirrhosis related death is increasing.1 Worldwide, the common causes of liver fibrosis and cirrhosis include hepatitis B and hepatitis C and alcohol. Other causes include immune mediated damage, genetic abnormalities, and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, which is associated with diabetes and the metabolic syndrome.2 Changing patterns of alcohol consumption in the West and the increasing rates of obesity and diabetes mean that advances in preventing and treating viral hepatitis may be offset by an increasing burden of fibrosis and cirrhosis related to alcohol and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis.