Minireviews
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jul 14, 2023; 29(26): 4166-4173
Published online Jul 14, 2023. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v29.i26.4166
Mortality from chronic liver disease: Recent trends and impact of the COVID-19 pandemic
Ugo Fedeli, Claudio Barbiellini Amidei, Veronica Casotto, Enrico Grande, Mario Saia, Alberto Zanetto, Francesco Paolo Russo
Ugo Fedeli, Claudio Barbiellini Amidei, Veronica Casotto, Epidemiological Department, Azienda Zero, Veneto Region, Padova 35132, Italy
Enrico Grande, Integrated System for Health, Social Assistance and Welfare, National Institute of Statistics, Rome 00184, Italy
Mario Saia, Clinical Governance, Azienda Zero, Veneto Region, Padova 35132, Italy
Alberto Zanetto, Francesco Paolo Russo, Department of Surgery Oncology and Gastroenterology, University of Padua, Padova 35128, Italy
Alberto Zanetto, Francesco Paolo Russo, Gastroenterology and Multivisceral Transplant Unit, Azienda Ospedale-Università di Padova, Padova 25128, Italy
Author contributions: Fedeli U designed the outline, coordinated the writing of the paper, prepared figures/tables; Barbiellini Amidei C, Casotto V, Grande E, Saia M, Zanetto A, and Russo FP collected the relevant bibliography and wrote the sections of the review; Barbiellini Amidei C and Casotto V contributed to “trends before the pandemic”; Zanetto A and Russo FP contributed to “COVID-19 and CLD”; Grande E and Saia M contributed to “CLD as a cause of deaths during the pandemic”; and all authors contributed to revising the first draft and approved the final version of the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare they have no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (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: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Ugo Fedeli, MD, Senior Scientist, Epidemiological Department, Azienda Zero, Veneto Region, 35 Via Avanzo, Padova 35132, Italy. ugo.fedeli@azero.veneto.it
Received: April 14, 2023
Peer-review started: April 14, 2023
First decision: May 23, 2023
Revised: May 26, 2023
Accepted: June 12, 2023
Article in press: June 12, 2023
Published online: July 14, 2023
Processing time: 86 Days and 22.2 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Preliminary data on causes of death during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic suggest that mortality from chronic liver disease (CLD) increased especially in countries where the alcoholic etiology was predominant, or with a prepandemic growing trend in mortality from alcoholic liver disease. Population-based studies on the direct and indirect effects of the pandemic on CLD mortality are strongly warranted. Analyses adopting the multiple cause-of-death approach might be better suited to fully investigate the impact of the pandemic on complex long-term pre-existing trends.