Objective: To examine the impact of alcohol consumption on the treatment profile, mortality and causes of death in intensive care unit (ICU)-admitted patients with liver cirrhosis and other liver disease.
Methods: Data on liver disease and ICU treatment of patients with previously diagnosed liver disease between 2015 and 2017 were retrospectively collected from medical records at Oulu University Hospital, Finland. The median follow-up was 367 days. The causes of death were obtained from Statistics Finland.
Results: From 250 patients, high-risk alcohol consumption was present in 74.7% (71 of 95) cirrhotic patients and 43.2% (67 of 155) patients in the other liver disease group. Gastrointestinal causes were the most common admission causes. Despite the higher SOFA scores in the alcoholic liver cirrhosis patients compared with the non-alcoholic cirrhosis, there were no differences in the need for organ support, length of ICU stay or outcome between the groups or the subgroups. There were no differences in 1-year mortality between the cirrhosis groups (alcoholic cirrhosis 43.7% versus non-alcoholic cirrhosis 45.8%, p = 1.0) or between the other liver disease groups (patients with alcohol consumption 37.3% versus patients without alcohol consumption 36.4%, p = 1.0). The patients with high-risk alcohol consumption died more often due to liver disease, whereas the patients without high-risk alcohol consumption died often due to malignancies.
Conclusions: We report no significant impact of alcohol consumption on the ICU treatment profile or mortality of patients with cirrhosis or other liver disease. The high mortality underlines the importance of preventive measures after ICU admission.
Keywords: Intensive care; alcohol; causes of death; liver disease; mortality.