Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. Feb 27, 2023; 15(2): 282-288
Published online Feb 27, 2023. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v15.i2.282
Hospitalizations for alcoholic liver disease during the COVID-19 pandemic increased more for women, especially young women, compared to men
John Patterson Campbell, Vinay Jahagirdar, Adel Muhanna, Kevin F Kennedy, John H Helzberg
John Patterson Campbell, Adel Muhanna, Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Saint Luke’s Health System of Kansas City and the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, MO 64111, United States
Vinay Jahagirdar, Department of Internal Medicine, Saint Luke’s Health System of Kansas City and the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, MO 64111, United States
Kevin F Kennedy, Division of Cardiology, Saint Luke’s Health System of Kansas City, Kansas City, MO 64111, United States
John H Helzberg, Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Liver Disease Management Unit, Saint Luke’s Health System of Kansas City and the University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, MO 64111, United States
Author contributions: Campbell JP, Jahagirdar V, Muhanna A, Kennedy KF, and Helzberg JH contributed equally to this work; Campbell JP contributed to conceptualization, data curation, writing original draft, review and editing, and project administration; Jahagirdar V contributed to writing original draft, review, and editing; Muhanna A contributed to investigation and methodology; Kennedy KF contributed to formal analysis, data curation, validation, and visualization; Helzberg JH contributed to supervision, writing, editing, and project administration; all authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Saint Luke’s Health System Institutional Review Board (Approval No. SLHS-21-057).
Informed consent statement: Informed consent was not obtained from each patient evaluated since this project was completely retrospective and performed with an IRB exemption.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
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: John Patterson Campbell, MD, Doctor, Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Saint Luke’s Health System of Kansas City and the University of Missouri-Kansas City, 4401 Wornall Road, Kansas City, MO 64111, United States. jpc6nf@umsystem.edu
Received: November 4, 2022
Peer-review started: November 4, 2022
First decision: January 3, 2023
Revised: January 15, 2023
Accepted: February 7, 2023
Article in press: February 7, 2023
Published online: February 27, 2023
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

Alcoholic liver disease (ALD) has traditionally been a disease of middle-aged and older men, though recent studies indicate an increasing prevalence of women with ALD.

Research motivation

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had widespread consequences affecting many socially and economically. This appears to have resulted in increased alcohol consumption in many individuals.

Research objectives

To assess the trends for ALD admissions during the COVID-19 pandemic and compare it to a similar pre-pandemic period.

Research methods

This was a retrospective analysis of hospitalizations for ALD in a large multi-center hospital system in the United States from April 2019 to March 2021.

Research results

An increase in admissions for ALD in women was noted (33% rise in women< 50 years and 22% rise in women > 50 years). Though ALD admissions for men < 50 years rose 24%, a fall of 24% in those > 50 years was noted.

Research conclusions

This study found a significant increase in younger women requiring hospital admission for ALD.

Research perspectives

It is of significant medical interest to gastroenterologists and hepatologists to determine whether the trend of increased ALD hospitalizations in women persist in future years.