A Comparison of the Effects of Alcohol Abstinence and Drinking Habit on the Survival of Patients with Alcohol-related Cirrhosis: A Retrospective Observational Study

Abstract

Objective Abstaining from alcohol improves the outcome of alcohol-related cirrhosis. This study evaluated the effect of alcohol abstinence on the outcomes of patients with alcohol-related cirrhosis recruited from a core hospital in Boso Peninsula, Japan. Methods This single-center retrospective study recruited 116 patients with alcohol-related cirrhosis who were admitted to our department between April 2014 and October 2022. Taking the day of discharge as day 0, the patients were divided into two groups based on their subsequent behavior (abstinence/non-abstinence from alcohol). The study analysis included 98 patients after excluding 13 who died during hospitalization and 5 for whom follow-up at our hospital ended after discharge. We evaluated differences in the patient survival between the abstaining and drinking groups. Results The abstaining and drinking groups comprised 57 and 41 patients, respectively. We excluded from the analysis 10 and 6 patients with viable hepatocellular carcinoma in the abstaining and drinking groups, respectively. The findings revealed that the survival rate plateaued in the abstaining group from the third year onward, whereas the survival rate in the drinking group gradually decreased with time. Conclusion Our findings suggest that at least two years of alcohol abstinence is required to sustain the survival of patients with alcohol-related cirrhosis. The data collected by our hospital retrospectively demonstrated the importance of abstinence on a timescale of years of sustained abstinence.