Alcoholic liver disease.

Alcoholic liver disease presents a wide spectrum of clinical manifestations ranging from mild asymptomatic fatty liver to alcoholic hepatitis and severe life-threatening liver failure with ascites, hemorrhaging esophageal varices, and encephalopathy. Although still poorly understood, the mechanism of this injury is probably the result of numerous direct toxic and metabolic effects of alcohol on the hepatocyte. Therapy consists primarily of abstinence and supportive care. However, several newer treatments are actively being studied. These include prednisolone, anabolic steroids, glucagon and insulin, propylthiouracil, and cyanidanol. Colchicine is promising as an agent to inhibit fibrosis. Complications of cirrhosis, including ascites and variceal hemorrhage, are the result of end stage disease. A return to old techniques of ascitic fluid management suggests that therapeutic large-volume paracentesis with albumin infusion is a safe and effective form of therapy. Variceal hemorrhage is best treated with sclerotherapy, vasoconstrictors, and balloon tamponade. Little has been done to alter the ultimately dismal prognosis and long-term survival of alcoholic liver disease.