Diagnosis and Severity Assessment of Alcohol-Related Liver Disease / 대한소화기학회지

ABSTRACT

A diagnosis of alcohol-related liver disease (ALD) requires information on the history of excessive alcohol consumption (averageintake of 40 g or more in men and 20 g or more in women a day). Furthermore, blood tests, such as GGT, AST, ALT, and mean corpuscularvolume, and imaging studies, including abdominal ultrasound or transient elastography, are also useful. A liver biopsycan be useful for confirming the diagnosis and has prognostic value. ALD includes alcoholic fatty liver, alcoholic hepatitis, and alcoholiccirrhosis, and in most cases, clinical manifestations can overlap. The prognostic scoring systems of ALD are limited mainlyto alcoholic hepatitis, and the early mortality and treatment response can be predicted using various scoring systems. This reviewsummarizes how to diagnose and evaluate the severity of ALD in clinical practice.