What Predicts Harmful Alcohol Use After Liver Transplantation?
Patients should not drink alcohol after liver transplantation for alcoholic liver disease. To identify risk factors for alcohol use after liver transplantation, researchers analyzed pre- and post-transplantation data from 387 patients (76% male, average age 51 years) who underwent the procedure in Switzerland or France. • Twelve percent of patients had harmful alcohol use* during an average follow-up of 61 months after transplantation. • In adjusted analyses, the following 3 factors were significantly associated with harmful alcohol use after transplantation: • a score of >3 on the High-Risk Alcoholism Relapse scale,** used to assess pre-transplantation alcohol use (odds ratio [OR], 10.7) • psychiatric comorbidity (OR, 7.8) • pre-transplantation abstinence from alcohol for ≤6 months (OR, 3.3) • Harmful alcohol use after transplantation occurred in 5% of patients with none of the above factors, in 18% with 1 factor, in 64% with 2 factors, and in 100% with all 3 factors.
