Diagnosis and Severity Assessment of Alcohol-Related Liver Disease

Abstract

A diagnosis of alcohol-related liver disease (ALD) requires information on the history of excessive alcohol consumption (average intake of 40 g or more in men and 20 g or more in women a day). Furthermore, blood tests, such as GGT, AST, ALT, and mean corpuscular volume, and imaging studies, including abdominal ultrasound or transient elastography, are also useful. A liver biopsy can be useful for confirming the diagnosis and has prognostic value. ALD includes alcoholic fatty liver, alcoholic hepatitis, and alcoholic cirrhosis, and in most cases, clinical manifestations can overlap. The prognostic scoring systems of ALD are limited mainly to alcoholic hepatitis, and the early mortality and treatment response can be predicted using various scoring systems. This review summarizes how to diagnose and evaluate the severity of ALD in clinical practice.