The impact of outpatient clinical care on the survival and hospitalisation rate in patients with alcoholic liver cirrhosis

In the study, we aimed to determine whether regular outpatient controls in patients with alcoholic liver cirrhosis have an impact on their survival and hospitalisation rates. We included patients with liver cirrhosis and regular outpatient controls as a prospective study group and patients with live...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Radiology and oncology Vol. 52; no. 1; pp. 75 - 82
Main Authors:	Majc, Dejan, Tepes, Bojan
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Poland De Gruyter Open 01-03-2018 De Gruyter Poland Sciendo
Subjects:	Alcohol use Alcohols Child-Pugh classification Cirrhosis Classification Complications Hospitalization Liver Liver cirrhosis Outpatient care facilities Patients regular outpatient controls Survival survival rate survival rate regular outpatient controls liver cirrhosis Child-Pugh classification
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Summary:	In the study, we aimed to determine whether regular outpatient controls in patients with alcoholic liver cirrhosis have an impact on their survival and hospitalisation rates. We included patients with liver cirrhosis and regular outpatient controls as a prospective study group and patients with liver cirrhosis who were admitted to hospital only in cases of complications as a retrospective control group. The study was conducted between 2006 and 2011. We included 98 patients in the study group and 101 patients in the control group. There were more outpatient controls in the study group than in the control group (5.54 examinations vs. 2.27 examinations, p = 0.000). Patients in the study group had 25 fewer hospitalisations (10.2%; p = 0.612). The median survival rate was 4.6 years in the study group and 2.9 years in the control group (p = 0.021). Patients with Child A classification had an average survival of one year longer in the study group (p = 0.035). No significant difference was found for Child B patients. Patients with Child C classification had longer survival by 1.6 years in the study group (p = 0.006). Alcohol consumption was lower in the study group than in the control group (p = 0.018). We confirmed that patients with regular outpatient controls had lower alcohol consumption, a lower hospitalisation rate and significantly prolonged survival time. We confirmed the necessity for the establishment of regular outpatient controls in patients with alcoholic liver cirrhosis.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23
ISSN:	1318-2099 1581-3207 1581-3207 0485-893X
DOI:	10.1515/raon-2017-0056