Research Information System
41. Ulusal Gastroenteroloji Haftası, Antalya, Turkey, 21 - 26 November 2023, pp.16, (Full Text)
Background/Aims: Alcohol-related liver disease (ALD) is one of the
most common causes of liver transplantation (LT). This study aimed
to determine risk factors for alcohol relapse after LT.
Materials and Methods: Patients with ALD who underwent LT from
10 different transplantation centres were assessed. Demographic
and clinical features such as family support, alcohol consumption
habits, whom the patient resided with, length of abstinence of alcohol
before LT, marital status, age at transplantation, and smoking
habits were evaluated and statistically analyzed.
Results: A total of 262 patients were examined in the study, and
alcohol use relapse information was obtained for 185 patients. A
total of 185 patients with ALD, consisting of all males (100%) with
and mean age of 53.2 ± 9.5 years, were recruited for evaluation
of the alcohol relapse. The mean follow-up time was 69.8 ± 58.0
months (range: 6 months-240 months). Thirty-four patients (18.5%)
reported consumption of alcohol following; LT: all patients began
drinking alcohol within the first 5 years of the posttransplant period
(mean relapse time: 16.9 ± 14.2 months). While fifty patients (32.3%)
did not adhere to the “6-month rule” of alcohol abstinence before LT, it was found that their rate of alcohol relapse did not statistically
increase after LT (P = .443). Approximately 38.3% (n = 49/128)
of the patients reported strict adherence to alcohol abstinence during
Ramadan time. Remarkably, marital status was related to higher
rates of posttransplant alcohol abstinence success (P = 0.00).
Conclusion: In our study, being married, family support and were
linked to a lower rate of relapsing back to drinking, and smoking
and family alcohol use were associated with alcohol relapse after
LT. There was no increase in the rate of relapsing back to drinking
among patients who had transplants without following the 6-month
rule. The results of this study indicated that multifactorial predictors
strongly influenced post-transplantation alcohol consumption
among patients.