Abstract
Alcohol-associated liver disease is a leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide.
Patients with alcohol-associated liver disease are often diagnosed at advanced stage
and disease spectrum including alcoholic hepatitis, a severe manifestation with a
high short-term mortality. Corticosteroid, recommended first-line treatment for patients
with alcoholic hepatitis, is a very suboptimal treatment. Although the use of early
liver transplantation has increased with consistent benefit in select patients with
alcoholic hepatitis, its use remains heterogeneous worldwide due to lack of uniform
selection criteria. Over the last decade, several therapeutic targets have evolved
of promise with ongoing clinical trials in patients with cirrhosis and alcoholic hepatitis.
Even with availability of effective medical therapies for alcohol-associated liver
disease, long-term outcome depends on abstinence from alcohol use in any spectrum
of alcohol-associated liver disease. However, alcohol use disorder treatment remains
underutilized due to several barriers even in patients with advanced disease. There
is an urgent unmet need to implement and promote integrated multidisciplinary care
model with hepatologists and addiction experts to provide comprehensive management
for these patients. In this review, we will discuss newer therapies targeting liver
disease and therapies targeting alcohol use disorder in patients with alcohol-associated
liver disease.
Keywords
alcohol-associated liver disease - alcoholic hepatitis - alcohol-use disorder - therapeutic
- emerging therapies
