BACKGROUND: Cirrhosis represents the end stage of chronic liver disease, characterized by high mortality and morbidity. The prevalence of liver disease is difficult to assess, given its clinical latency up to the late stage. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to assess the prevalence of unrecognized chronic liver disease and cirrhosis using surrogate indicators from medical records of family physicians. METHODS: Medical records of 139,104 subjects, collected from 99 family physicians of the Veneto region, were used. Persistently high transaminases were used as indicators of occult chronic liver disease; thrombocytopenia, unrelated to haematological malignancies, was used as indicator of occult cirrhosis. Diagnosis of chronic liver disease and cirrhosis was assessed using ICD9-CM-1997 codes. RESULTS: Alteration of transaminases was found in 32.7% of the subjects, and among them only one-third had an already diagnosed liver disease. Patients with diagnosis of cirrhosis were 0.3%, while thrombocytopenia, indicator of occult cirrhosis, was detected in 1.3% of the remaining population. Patients with overt and occult cirrhosis showed a higher metabolic profile, with significantly higher prevalence of arterial hypertension, obesity and diabetes than the general population. CONCLUSION: A large proportion of patients with chronic liver disease is still undiagnosed. Surrogate biochemical indicators might be useful for disease recognition.
BACKGROUND: Cirrhosis represents the end stage of chronic liver disease, characterized by high mortality and morbidity. The prevalence of liver disease is difficult to assess, given its clinical latency up to the late stage. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to assess the prevalence of unrecognized chronic liver disease and cirrhosis using surrogate indicators from medical records of family physicians. METHODS: Medical records of 139,104 subjects, collected from 99 family physicians of the Veneto region, were used. Persistently high transaminases were used as indicators of occult chronic liver disease; thrombocytopenia, unrelated to haematological malignancies, was used as indicator of occult cirrhosis. Diagnosis of chronic liver disease and cirrhosis was assessed using ICD9-CM-1997 codes. RESULTS: Alteration of transaminases was found in 32.7% of the subjects, and among them only one-third had an already diagnosed liver disease. Patients with diagnosis of cirrhosis were 0.3%, while thrombocytopenia, indicator of occult cirrhosis, was detected in 1.3% of the remaining population. Patients with overt and occult cirrhosis showed a higher metabolic profile, with significantly higher prevalence of arterial hypertension, obesity and diabetes than the general population. CONCLUSION: A large proportion of patients with chronic liver disease is still undiagnosed. Surrogate biochemical indicators might be useful for disease recognition.
Authors: Edith M Koehler; Elisabeth P C Plompen; Jeoffrey N L Schouten; Bettina E Hansen; Sarwa Darwish Murad; Pavel Taimr; Frank W G Leebeek; Albert Hofman; Bruno H Stricker; Laurent Castera; Harry L A Janssen Journal: Hepatology Date: 2015-10-01 Impact factor: 17.425
Authors: Christopher J L Murray; Theo Vos; Rafael Lozano; Mohsen Naghavi; Abraham D Flaxman; Catherine Michaud; Majid Ezzati; Kenji Shibuya; Joshua A Salomon; Safa Abdalla; Victor Aboyans; Jerry Abraham; Ilana Ackerman; Rakesh Aggarwal; Stephanie Y Ahn; Mohammed K Ali; Miriam Alvarado; H Ross Anderson; Laurie M Anderson; Kathryn G Andrews; Charles Atkinson; Larry M Baddour; Adil N Bahalim; Suzanne Barker-Collo; Lope H Barrero; David H Bartels; Maria-Gloria Basáñez; Amanda Baxter; Michelle L Bell; Emelia J Benjamin; Derrick Bennett; Eduardo Bernabé; Kavi Bhalla; Bishal Bhandari; Boris Bikbov; Aref Bin Abdulhak; Gretchen Birbeck; James A Black; Hannah Blencowe; Jed D Blore; Fiona Blyth; Ian Bolliger; Audrey Bonaventure; Soufiane Boufous; Rupert Bourne; Michel Boussinesq; Tasanee Braithwaite; Carol Brayne; Lisa Bridgett; Simon Brooker; Peter Brooks; Traolach S Brugha; Claire Bryan-Hancock; Chiara Bucello; Rachelle Buchbinder; Geoffrey Buckle; Christine M Budke; Michael Burch; Peter Burney; Roy Burstein; Bianca Calabria; Benjamin Campbell; Charles E Canter; Hélène Carabin; Jonathan Carapetis; Loreto Carmona; Claudia Cella; Fiona Charlson; Honglei Chen; Andrew Tai-Ann Cheng; David Chou; Sumeet S Chugh; Luc E Coffeng; Steven D Colan; Samantha Colquhoun; K Ellicott Colson; John Condon; Myles D Connor; Leslie T Cooper; Matthew Corriere; Monica Cortinovis; Karen Courville de Vaccaro; William Couser; Benjamin C Cowie; Michael H Criqui; Marita Cross; Kaustubh C Dabhadkar; Manu Dahiya; Nabila Dahodwala; James Damsere-Derry; Goodarz Danaei; Adrian Davis; Diego De Leo; Louisa Degenhardt; Robert Dellavalle; Allyne Delossantos; Julie Denenberg; Sarah Derrett; Don C Des Jarlais; Samath D Dharmaratne; Mukesh Dherani; Cesar Diaz-Torne; Helen Dolk; E Ray Dorsey; Tim Driscoll; Herbert Duber; Beth Ebel; Karen Edmond; Alexis Elbaz; Suad Eltahir Ali; Holly Erskine; Patricia J Erwin; Patricia Espindola; Stalin E Ewoigbokhan; Farshad Farzadfar; Valery Feigin; David T Felson; Alize Ferrari; Cleusa P Ferri; Eric M Fèvre; Mariel M Finucane; Seth Flaxman; Louise Flood; Kyle Foreman; Mohammad H Forouzanfar; Francis Gerry R Fowkes; Marlene Fransen; Michael K Freeman; Belinda J Gabbe; Sherine E Gabriel; Emmanuela Gakidou; Hammad A Ganatra; Bianca Garcia; Flavio Gaspari; Richard F Gillum; Gerhard Gmel; Diego Gonzalez-Medina; Richard Gosselin; Rebecca Grainger; Bridget Grant; Justina Groeger; Francis Guillemin; David Gunnell; Ramyani Gupta; Juanita Haagsma; Holly Hagan; Yara A Halasa; Wayne Hall; Diana Haring; Josep Maria Haro; James E Harrison; Rasmus Havmoeller; Roderick J Hay; Hideki Higashi; Catherine Hill; Bruno Hoen; Howard Hoffman; Peter J Hotez; Damian Hoy; John J Huang; Sydney E Ibeanusi; Kathryn H Jacobsen; Spencer L James; Deborah Jarvis; Rashmi Jasrasaria; Sudha Jayaraman; Nicole Johns; Jost B Jonas; Ganesan Karthikeyan; Nicholas Kassebaum; Norito Kawakami; Andre Keren; Jon-Paul Khoo; Charles H King; Lisa Marie Knowlton; Olive Kobusingye; Adofo Koranteng; Rita Krishnamurthi; Francine Laden; Ratilal Lalloo; Laura L Laslett; Tim Lathlean; Janet L Leasher; Yong Yi Lee; James Leigh; Daphna Levinson; Stephen S Lim; Elizabeth Limb; John Kent Lin; Michael Lipnick; Steven E Lipshultz; Wei Liu; Maria Loane; Summer Lockett Ohno; Ronan Lyons; Jacqueline Mabweijano; Michael F MacIntyre; Reza Malekzadeh; Leslie Mallinger; Sivabalan Manivannan; Wagner Marcenes; Lyn March; David J Margolis; Guy B Marks; Robin Marks; Akira Matsumori; Richard Matzopoulos; Bongani M Mayosi; John H McAnulty; Mary M McDermott; Neil McGill; John McGrath; Maria Elena Medina-Mora; Michele Meltzer; George A Mensah; Tony R Merriman; Ana-Claire Meyer; Valeria Miglioli; Matthew Miller; Ted R Miller; Philip B Mitchell; Charles Mock; Ana Olga Mocumbi; Terrie E Moffitt; Ali A Mokdad; Lorenzo Monasta; Marcella Montico; Maziar Moradi-Lakeh; Andrew Moran; Lidia Morawska; Rintaro Mori; Michele E Murdoch; Michael K Mwaniki; Kovin Naidoo; M Nathan Nair; Luigi Naldi; K M Venkat Narayan; Paul K Nelson; Robert G Nelson; Michael C Nevitt; Charles R Newton; Sandra Nolte; Paul Norman; Rosana Norman; Martin O'Donnell; Simon O'Hanlon; Casey Olives; Saad B Omer; Katrina Ortblad; Richard Osborne; Doruk Ozgediz; Andrew Page; Bishnu Pahari; Jeyaraj Durai Pandian; Andrea Panozo Rivero; Scott B Patten; Neil Pearce; Rogelio Perez Padilla; Fernando Perez-Ruiz; Norberto Perico; Konrad Pesudovs; David Phillips; Michael R Phillips; Kelsey Pierce; Sébastien Pion; Guilherme V Polanczyk; Suzanne Polinder; C Arden Pope; Svetlana Popova; Esteban Porrini; Farshad Pourmalek; Martin Prince; Rachel L Pullan; Kapa D Ramaiah; Dharani Ranganathan; Homie Razavi; Mathilda Regan; Jürgen T Rehm; David B Rein; Guiseppe Remuzzi; Kathryn Richardson; Frederick P Rivara; Thomas Roberts; Carolyn Robinson; Felipe Rodriguez De Leòn; Luca Ronfani; Robin Room; Lisa C Rosenfeld; Lesley Rushton; Ralph L Sacco; Sukanta Saha; Uchechukwu Sampson; Lidia Sanchez-Riera; Ella Sanman; David C Schwebel; James Graham Scott; Maria Segui-Gomez; Saeid Shahraz; Donald S Shepard; Hwashin Shin; Rupak Shivakoti; David Singh; Gitanjali M Singh; Jasvinder A Singh; Jessica Singleton; David A Sleet; Karen Sliwa; Emma Smith; Jennifer L Smith; Nicolas J C Stapelberg; Andrew Steer; Timothy Steiner; Wilma A Stolk; Lars Jacob Stovner; Christopher Sudfeld; Sana Syed; Giorgio Tamburlini; Mohammad Tavakkoli; Hugh R Taylor; Jennifer A Taylor; William J Taylor; Bernadette Thomas; W Murray Thomson; George D Thurston; Imad M Tleyjeh; Marcello Tonelli; Jeffrey A Towbin; Thomas Truelsen; Miltiadis K Tsilimbaris; Clotilde Ubeda; Eduardo A Undurraga; Marieke J van der Werf; Jim van Os; Monica S Vavilala; N Venketasubramanian; Mengru Wang; Wenzhi Wang; Kerrianne Watt; David J Weatherall; Martin A Weinstock; Robert Weintraub; Marc G Weisskopf; Myrna M Weissman; Richard A White; Harvey Whiteford; Natasha Wiebe; Steven T Wiersma; James D Wilkinson; Hywel C Williams; Sean R M Williams; Emma Witt; Frederick Wolfe; Anthony D Woolf; Sarah Wulf; Pon-Hsiu Yeh; Anita K M Zaidi; Zhi-Jie Zheng; David Zonies; Alan D Lopez; Mohammad A AlMazroa; Ziad A Memish Journal: Lancet Date: 2012-12-15 Impact factor: 79.321
Authors: Rafael Lozano; Mohsen Naghavi; Kyle Foreman; Stephen Lim; Kenji Shibuya; Victor Aboyans; Jerry Abraham; Timothy Adair; Rakesh Aggarwal; Stephanie Y Ahn; Miriam Alvarado; H Ross Anderson; Laurie M Anderson; Kathryn G Andrews; Charles Atkinson; Larry M Baddour; Suzanne Barker-Collo; David H Bartels; Michelle L Bell; Emelia J Benjamin; Derrick Bennett; Kavi Bhalla; Boris Bikbov; Aref Bin Abdulhak; Gretchen Birbeck; Fiona Blyth; Ian Bolliger; Soufiane Boufous; Chiara Bucello; Michael Burch; Peter Burney; Jonathan Carapetis; Honglei Chen; David Chou; Sumeet S Chugh; Luc E Coffeng; Steven D Colan; Samantha Colquhoun; K Ellicott Colson; John Condon; Myles D Connor; Leslie T Cooper; Matthew Corriere; Monica Cortinovis; Karen Courville de Vaccaro; William Couser; Benjamin C Cowie; Michael H Criqui; Marita Cross; Kaustubh C Dabhadkar; Nabila Dahodwala; Diego De Leo; Louisa Degenhardt; Allyne Delossantos; Julie Denenberg; Don C Des Jarlais; Samath D Dharmaratne; E Ray Dorsey; Tim Driscoll; Herbert Duber; Beth Ebel; Patricia J Erwin; Patricia Espindola; Majid Ezzati; Valery Feigin; Abraham D Flaxman; Mohammad H Forouzanfar; Francis Gerry R Fowkes; Richard Franklin; Marlene Fransen; Michael K Freeman; Sherine E Gabriel; Emmanuela Gakidou; Flavio Gaspari; Richard F Gillum; Diego Gonzalez-Medina; Yara A Halasa; Diana Haring; James E Harrison; Rasmus Havmoeller; Roderick J Hay; Bruno Hoen; Peter J Hotez; Damian Hoy; Kathryn H Jacobsen; Spencer L James; Rashmi Jasrasaria; Sudha Jayaraman; Nicole Johns; Ganesan Karthikeyan; Nicholas Kassebaum; Andre Keren; Jon-Paul Khoo; Lisa Marie Knowlton; Olive Kobusingye; Adofo Koranteng; Rita Krishnamurthi; Michael Lipnick; Steven E Lipshultz; Summer Lockett Ohno; Jacqueline Mabweijano; Michael F MacIntyre; Leslie Mallinger; Lyn March; Guy B Marks; Robin Marks; Akira Matsumori; Richard Matzopoulos; Bongani M Mayosi; John H McAnulty; Mary M McDermott; John McGrath; George A Mensah; Tony R Merriman; Catherine Michaud; Matthew Miller; Ted R Miller; Charles Mock; Ana Olga Mocumbi; Ali A Mokdad; Andrew Moran; Kim Mulholland; M Nathan Nair; Luigi Naldi; K M Venkat Narayan; Kiumarss Nasseri; Paul Norman; Martin O'Donnell; Saad B Omer; Katrina Ortblad; Richard Osborne; Doruk Ozgediz; Bishnu Pahari; Jeyaraj Durai Pandian; Andrea Panozo Rivero; Rogelio Perez Padilla; Fernando Perez-Ruiz; Norberto Perico; David Phillips; Kelsey Pierce; C Arden Pope; Esteban Porrini; Farshad Pourmalek; Murugesan Raju; Dharani Ranganathan; Jürgen T Rehm; David B Rein; Guiseppe Remuzzi; Frederick P Rivara; Thomas Roberts; Felipe Rodriguez De León; Lisa C Rosenfeld; Lesley Rushton; Ralph L Sacco; Joshua A Salomon; Uchechukwu Sampson; Ella Sanman; David C Schwebel; Maria Segui-Gomez; Donald S Shepard; David Singh; Jessica Singleton; Karen Sliwa; Emma Smith; Andrew Steer; Jennifer A Taylor; Bernadette Thomas; Imad M Tleyjeh; Jeffrey A Towbin; Thomas Truelsen; Eduardo A Undurraga; N Venketasubramanian; Lakshmi Vijayakumar; Theo Vos; Gregory R Wagner; Mengru Wang; Wenzhi Wang; Kerrianne Watt; Martin A Weinstock; Robert Weintraub; James D Wilkinson; Anthony D Woolf; Sarah Wulf; Pon-Hsiu Yeh; Paul Yip; Azadeh Zabetian; Zhi-Jie Zheng; Alan D Lopez; Christopher J L Murray; Mohammad A AlMazroa; Ziad A Memish Journal: Lancet Date: 2012-12-15 Impact factor: 79.321
Authors: Mark G Swain; Alnoor Ramji; Keyur Patel; Giada Sebastiani; Abdel Aziz Shaheen; Edward Tam; Paul Marotta; Magdy Elkhashab; Harpreet S Bajaj; Chris Estes; Homie Razavi Journal: CMAJ Open Date: 2020-06-09