[Prevalence of liver damage in alcoholics and drug addicts]

The behaviour of drug addicts and alcoholics leads to the cooperation of risk factors concerning the development of chronic hepatitis, liver cirrhosis and hepatocarcinoma. The authors evaluate the prevalence of infections from B, C and Delta virus among a group of 40 intravenous drug users and 40 alcoholics affering to a territorial centre for drug dependence located in Valtellina (Italy). The prevalence of at least one serum marker of virus B, C or Delta hepatitis results to be 85% among drug addicts and 17% among alcoholics. The prevalence of Anti-HCV in alcoholics results to be much lower than found in former works. For what concerns the hepatitis B virus, 68% of the drug addicts and 10% of the alcoholics had at least one positive serum marker. The hepatitis B seronegative patients underwent vaccination with a recombinant-DNA vaccine. Those affected by chronic C hepatitis have been treated with alpha-recombinant interferon. All of the patients underwent health education, psychotherapy and drug-addiction therapy for a period of 8 months. These strategies in prevention and therapy aim to the reduction over the years of the incidence of chronic hepatitis liver cirrhosis and hepatocarcinoma among intravenous drug users and alcoholics.