The effect of light drinking on HCV liver disease: the jury is still out

We carried out a study to determine if light drinking (1 unit alcohol/d) adversely affected liver histology in hepatitis C virus (HCV)-associated liver disease. Twenty-eight women who developed chronic hepatitis C (all genotype 1b) as a result of receiving contaminated anti-D immunoglobulin (Ig) had their alcohol intake assessed. Group I (n = 8) took no alcohol, Group II (n = 8) consumed less than one unit monthly and Group III (n = 12) took between two and 18 units (mean = 6.7 units) per week. All 28 subjects had a liver biopsy performed and their histology scored according to the global Knodell score (KI) and the international score for both inflammatory grading (II) and fibrotic staging (FI). The three scores were compared between the three groups and differences tested for significance. The median score for the three groups were Group I: KI = 2, II = 2 and FI = 0; Group II: KI = 4, II = 3.5 and FI = 0.5; Group III: KI = 5.5, II = 4 and FI = 1.5. Initial analysis showed that there was no difference between those who abstained from alcohol and those with a less than monthly consumption; these groups were united and compared with the light drinkers. On Mann-Whitney U test analysis, the P values for the differences between the light drinkers and the combined groups were 0.666 (KI), 0.159 (II) and 0.080 (FI) These results show a trend towards greater histological abnormality in people drinking one unit of alcohol per day, but larger groups will need to be assessed to determine if this is a true or chance finding.