none 10.18502/ijph.v51i10.10985 Knowledge E DMCC Knowledge E DMCC 7770 141783906 340577 2013 10.18502 2024-12-17T17:14:58Z 2022-10-25T12:50:30Z 0 Iranian Journal of Public Health ijph 2251-6093 2251-6085 10 25 2022 Tamara Milovanovic Sofija Lugonja Ivana Pantic Svetlana Miltenovic Zeljko Vlaisavljevic Abbas Mardani Background: Cirrhosis due to alcohol-related liver disease (ALD cirrhosis) is a significant burden to health systems worldwide. We aimed to determine the trends in hospitalization frequency due to ALD cirrhosis and to analyze their characteristics. Methods: This cross-sectional study used data from the Institute of Public Health of Belgrade database, and included all hospitalization reports which contained code K70.3 (Cirrhosis hepatis alcoholica) as the primary diagnosis, including re-hospitalizations, on the territory of Belgrade, between January 2009 and December 2018. Results: A total of 4644 patients with ALD cirrhosis were hospitalized (male: 4154, 89.45%), with a mean age of 58.83±10.02 years. During the 2009-2018 decade, no difference in the number of ALD cirrhosis hospitalizations in subsequent years was observed. Men more commonly developed esophageal and gastric varices with bleeding compared to women (P=0.037), while women developed acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF) almost two-times more often compared to men (P<0.001). Patients with hepatocellular carcinoma were significantly older (P<0.001), while those who developed ascites and splenomegaly were significantly younger compared to those who did not (P<0.001 and P=0.04, respectively). Altogether, complications of portal hypertension were registered and reported with very low frequency, and therefore do not represent actual frequencies of these conditions. The median duration of hospital stay was 9 days (range 0-243). Patients in whom lethal outcome occurred during the hospitalization were significantly older, and more commonly developed chronic renal failure. Conclusion: These data offer an important insight into the ALD cirrhosis-related hospitalizations while drawing attention to inadequate coding as an important public health issue at the same time. 10 25 2022 10.18502/ijph.v51i10.10985 https://publish.kne-publishing.com/index.php/ijph/article/view/10985 https://publish.kne-publishing.com/index.php/ijph/article/download/10985/10361 https://publish.kne-publishing.com/index.php/ijph/article/download/10985/10361 https://ijph.tums.ac.ir/index.php/ijph/article/view/25592 https://publish.kne-publishing.com/index.php/ijph/article/view/10985