The Higher Prevalence of Non-Alcoholic versus Alcoholic Steatohepatitis in Alcoholics

The aim of this study was to evaluate the prevalence of alcoholic (ASH) and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) in alcoholics by non-invasive biochemical markers: AshTest and NashTest.

The tested group consisted of 142 alcoholic patients. All biochemical markers were assessed using the recommended methods.

The highest values of AshTest and NashTest were observed in the highest H3 score and N2 score, respectively. The distribution of AshTest scores was the following: H0 - 94.1%, H1 - 5.2%, H2 - 0%, and H3 - 0.7%, while for NashTest was: N0 - 56.6%, N1 - 38.2% and N2 - 5.1%. In summary, alcoholic steatohepatitis was present only in 5.9% of alcoholics and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis in 43.3% of patients. Co-occurrence of ASH and NASH was observed in 3.7% of patients. The BMI, mean glucose, and triglyceride levels were significantly different between NashTest scores, but not between AshTest scores. These results may evidence that non-alcoholic steatohepatitis is associated with metabolic risk factors such as diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia, and obesity. The MCV value and AST/ALT ratio were higher in alcoholic steatohepatitis than in non-alcoholic steatohepatitis.

In conclusion, the prevalence of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis in alcoholics is higher than of alcoholic steatohepatitis, as estimated by non-invasive tests. Co-occurrence of alcoholic steatohepatitis and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis in alcoholic patients is low and the high prevalence of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis is related with high occurrence of metabolic risk factors.