[Biochemical and clinical aspects of alcoholic liver damage].

Alcoholism is the most common form of drug abuse and alcoholic liver disease is a major health problem which in terms of increasing incidence is only rivaled by viral hepatitis. Cirrhosis of the liver, most of which is probably alcoholic, is among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality between the ages of 25 to 65 in Western countries. Alcoholic liver disease includes adaptive and toxic ultrastructural alterations, alcoholic fatty liver, alcoholic hepatitis and alcoholic cirrhosis, later accompanied by hepatoma.