69% of people with liver cirrhosis don’t know it

Cirrhosis of the liver is more common than previously thought, however 69 percent of the adults identified as possibly having liver cirrhosis may not know they have this disease, according to a study published in the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology.

Advertisement

Researchers examined data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, an annual survey of a representative sample of U.S. adults conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The prevalence of cirrhosis was approximately 0.27 percent — around 633,323 adults. Previous estimates showed the number of cirrhosis patients to be about 400,000 adults.

Additionally, the study found that people with cirrhosis had a mortality rate of 26.4 percent during a two-year interval. Also, a quarter of people with cirrhosis reported they drank alcohol in excess during the prior year, and nearly half tested positive for the hepatitis C virus.

More articles on gastroenterology and endoscopy:

Making GI dollars stretch further than ever: Insight into financial & operational efficiency
7 must-reads on hepatitis C treatments
Express Scripts to cover AbbVie’s new Hepatitis C treatment but not Gilead’s Sovaldi

Advertisement

Next Up in GI & Endoscopy

Advertisement

Comments are closed.