Alcohol relapse can adversely affect survival rates in patients after liver transplantation only after 10 years, as per a study.

The study results appeared in Liver Transplantation, the official journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) and the International Liver Transplantation Society (ILTS). This journal is published on behalf of the societies by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. and is available online via Wiley InterScience.

From News-Medical.Net:

Led by Antonio Cuadrado, M.D. of the Gastroenterology and Hepatology  Unit of the University Hospital “Marqués de Valdecilla” in Santander, Spain, the study expanded on a 1977 study involving 44 patients who underwent liver transplants for ALD and 17 controls who were followed up for a mean period of 39.5 months. This group was enlarged for the present study to 54 patients in total, including those analyzed in the previous study. Before transplantation was undertaken, a 6-month period of abstinence from alcohol was required. Patients were all given the same immunosuppressive regimen, consisting of cyclosporine A, steroids and azathioprine. By the end of the third month following transplant, azathioprine was stopped and prednisone was progressively tapered over the first year. Follow-up periods ranged from 14 to 155 months, with a mean of 99.2 months.

It was noted by the study authors that risk-reducing measures such as abstaining from alcohol and quitting smoking should be encouraged in the affected patients.

Tags:  alcohol relapse, azathioprine, liver transplantation, Steroids

Posted in  Steroids | No Comments/Questions

A study indicated that a high incidence of rejection and a low incidence of intolerance is related to an early steroid withdrawal following liver transplantation. The study, which is hailed as the first-of-its-kind double-blind placebo-controlled study, was undertaken to examine effects of early steroid elimination.

The study results were published in an issue of Liver Transplantation, the official journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) and the International Liver Transplantation Society (ILTS).

From Eurekalert.org:

The normal course of treatment after liver transplantation includes calcineurin inhibitors (a class of immunosuppressants) and steroids to minimize rejection and improve survival rates, but the long-term complications of these drugs can be fatal. Steroid use in particular can lead to diabetes, high cholesterol and hypertension, which increase the risk of heart disease, and can lead to death. Several previous studies have reported that early withdrawal from steroids reduced the incidence of these side effects, but that rejection increased, although it could be controlled with steroid pulse therapy (in which high doses of steroids are administered intravenously for a short period of time). The current multicenter study was the first prospective double-blind, placebo-controlled trial to compare early steroid withdrawal with continued use.

Led by Georges-Philippe Pageaux, of the Centre Hospitalier University St.-Eloi in Montpellier, France, the study examined 174 patients in 15 French liver transplantation centers over a 14-month period from December 1999 to August 2001. The patients were randomly divided into two groups seven days following transplant: 90 of them continued to receive steroids for six months, while 84 received a placebo starting at day 14 (following 7 days of tapering from steroids). At the end of six months, 22 patients in the steroid group (24.4 percent) and 32 patients in the placebo group (38.1 percent) experienced acute rejection. Although there was no statistical difference in the two groups for high cholesterol and hypertension, 22.2 percent of patients in the steroid group developed diabetes compared with 14.3 percent of placebo patients. At the end of 12 months, the incidence of acute rejection was 25.6 percent in the steroid group versus 39.3 percent in the placebo group, but there no longer a difference in diabetes between the two groups.

The involved authors were of the view that early steroid withdrawal at day 14 cannot be termed as safe when it comes to rejection but told that it is efficient in terms of tolerability to glucose.

Tags:  diabetes, doses of steroids, early steroid withdrawal, liver transplantation, steroid, Steroid use, steroid withdrawal

Posted in  Steroids | No Comments/Questions