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(CNN) – According to a new study, more and more Americans, especially young people, are dying from cirrhosis-related liver diseases.
After adjusting for age and other factors, the study – published Wednesday in the BMJ – found that deaths in the United States due to cirrhosis increased by 65% and deaths from liver cancer from 1999 to 2016. During this period, deaths related to cirrhosis increased for each ethnic group and for both men and women.
From 2009 to 2016, the greatest increase in mortality rate due to cirrhosis was among people aged 25 to 34, according to Dr. Elliot Tapper, Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan and first author on the paper.
Tapper cited an increase in excessive alcohol consumption among youth to explain the increase in mortality related to cirrhosis. To reduce these preventable deaths, he said, steps should be taken such as increasing the price of alcohol and diagnosing cirrhosis using existing blood tests.
He said that he was treating more and more young people for cirrhosis and decided to conduct the study to see if the trend was true at the national level.
"We were struck by how the current concept of the person who develops cirrhosis does not quite match what we see," he said. "It was really striking for us to have people who were younger than us in our clinic dying of cirrhosis."
Cirrhosis, scarring of the liver, occurs when toxins such as alcohol or excess calories overwhelm the liver, causing inflammation and possibly scarring.
Life-threatening complications can stem from cirrhosis, including fluid accumulation in the stomach, formation of varicose veins and the spread of toxins to the brain, causing what is called a liver coma. The disease also increases the risk of liver cancer, one of the leading causes of cancer deaths.
The new study examined publicly available data from the United States Vital Statistics Cooperative for the years 1999 to 2016. Overall, researchers found that age-adjusted mortality of cirrhosis was 12.18 per 100,000 people. From 2008 to 2016, mortality increased annually by 3.4%.
The increase in mortality due to cirrhosis was greater in Kentucky, New Mexico and Arkansas, according to the study.
The researchers compared changes in mortality due to alcohol-related cirrhosis of states to their changes in alcohol-related disorders. Many of the states that reported increasing rates of alcohol-related cirrhosis also had rising rates of alcohol use disorders, and vice versa. Because their study was observational, however, they could not confirm that the two trends were related.
In addition to his observational nature, Tapper indicated that a potential limitation of the study came from the use of death records, which were found to be inaccurate in about 10% of cases.
Dr. Farhad Islami, the scientific director of research on cancer surveillance at the American Cancer Society, said the study's findings reveal an interesting trend between excessive alcohol consumption and deaths due to cirrhosis in young people.
While the death rate increased most among young people, the number of young people dying of cirrhosis was much smaller: in 2016, cirrhosis accounted for 1.4% of deaths among 25- to 34-year-olds, according to the report. # 39; study. Islami said that inaccurate mortality reports for this age group could have inadvertently given the false appearance of an upward trend.
The study was published a few days after a report by the National Center for Health Statistics of the CDC that found that liver cancer death rates increased by 43% between 2000 and 2016.
"What you feel about our study is not a contradiction of what they do, in fact, it is a confirmation of what they found," he said. said Tapper. Both studies provide a clearer picture of the needs of the patient with cirrhosis, he said: both for liver cancer screening and intensive treatment to prevent other diseases associated with cirrhosis. "
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