Dr. G S Pratinidhi

Symptoms, causes, and treatment for Alcoholic Liver Disease

Hi, This is Dr. Umesh Alegaonkar from Thane, Sampada Hospital. The topic of discussion is Chronic Alcoholic Liver Disease.

As you know, that 95% of the cases of liver damage on earth is because of alcohol and over intake of alcohol. Usually, it is defined as alcoholic diseases when a person suffers from the diseases of liver related illnesses and consumes more than 80 grams of alcohol or 240 ml of alcohol every day for at least five years. In the case of women, this amount gets little lower, it's 50 grams of alcohol daily for five years. Usually, the liver failures manifest in terms of increase in weight gain, jaundice, irrelevant speech, a decrease in night sleep, day time sleep pattern alters, decrease in appetite, increase in your abdominal girth. It is usually very late to diagnose the chronic liver disease because of the alcoholism, usually, the patients are into the denial mode, and the sonographic features may not be able to reveal the intensity of the liver diseases.

The newer technology like the Fibroscan can definitely give an early indication of the liver damages that has happened because of the alcohol intake. Apart from the history of the alcohol intake, the patient can simply opt for Elastography which is the finest diagnostic tool available nowadays in any of the diagnostic centers. Depending on the share value, we can judge the severity of the liver damage because of alcohol. Of course, the liver transplant is the golf standard treatment when the liver is completely damaged, but the need for the liver transplant goes into declining mode as the person quits alcohol, it decreases by and large the survival rate from the day of abstinence of alcohol is more than 30%. So if we consider that 30% of the life span of a person when he leaves alcohol considering the liver damage costing nowadays are around 30-35 lac rupees. We can estimate the amount of money which can be saved by just remaining away from alcohol.

Apart from that, liver damage recommends multiple tests such as blood test, urine test and ultimately the huge socio-economic burden needs to be evaluated just because of alcohol giving trouble not only in the family but also in the society. A simple measure by lessening your alcohol intake or abstaining from alcohol may be a fair idea but it is not recommended at all when a person gets to know the liver has roughly damaged because of the alcohol. Now, that day onwards, he has to abstain from alcoholism.

For any other further alcohol related or liver damage inquiries, please contact on lybrate.com