Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2019. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jan 21, 2019; 25(3): 378-387
Published online Jan 21, 2019. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v25.i3.378
Differential hepatic features presenting in Wilson disease-associated cirrhosis and hepatitis B-associated cirrhosis
Hao-Jie Zhong, Huan-Huan Sun, Lan-Feng Xue, Eileen M McGowan, Yu Chen
Hao-Jie Zhong, Lan-Feng Xue, Yu Chen, Department of Gastroenterology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangdong Pharmaceutical University, Guangzhou 510000, Guangdong Province, China
Hao-Jie Zhong, Department of Gastroenterology, Guangdong Medical University, Zhanjiang 524000, Guangdong Province, China
Huan-Huan Sun, Department of Gastroenterology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xi’an Jiao Tong University, Xi’an 710000, Shaanxi Province, China
Eileen M McGowan, Faculty of Science, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney NSW 2007, Australia
Author contributions: Zhong HJ, Sun HH, and Chen Y contributed to study conception and design; Zhong HJ, Sun HH, Xue LF, McGowan EM, and Chen Y contributed to data acquisition, data analysis and interpretation, and writing of the article; Zhong HJ, McGowan EM, and Chen Y contributed to editing, reviewing, and final approval of the article.
Supported by the Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong Province, No. 2015A030302085 and No. 2016A020212022.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Ethical Committee of the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangdong Pharmaceutical University (2018-72).
Informed consent statement: Informed consent was waived by the Ethical Committee of the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangdong Pharmaceutical University.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There are no conflicts of interest for any of the authors.
Data sharing statement: The original anonymous dataset is available on request from the corresponding author at yuchen@gdpu.edu.cn.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement-checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared according to the STROBE Statement-checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Yu Chen, MD, PhD, Doctor, Department of Gastroenterology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangdong Pharmaceutical University, No. 19, Nonglinxia Road, Guangzhou 510000, Guangdong Province, China. yuchen@gdpu.edu.cn
Telephone: 86-138-24462875 Fax: +86-020-61325957
Received: December 7, 2018
Peer-review started: December 9, 2018
First decision: December 28, 2018
Revised: January 3, 2019
Accepted: January 9, 2019
Article in press: January 9, 2019
Published online: January 21, 2019
Processing time: 46 Days and 1.4 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: In Asia, especially China, the incidence of Wilson disease (WD) and its complications is much higher in the younger generation compared to Western societies. This article looks beyond the well-characterized, generalized definition of cirrhosis. It addresses an important but simple question: Can the origin of cirrhosis be classified by clinical features, especially in WD-associated cirrhosis? In this manuscript we define specific clinical characteristics of WD-associated cirrhosis in young patients which are very distinct to those of hepatitis-associated cirrhosis in older patients. These important findings may benefit the clinical diagnosis and ultimate treatment of these younger, vulnerable WD patients.