Background: Liver cirrhosis is an important cause of morbidity and mortality; however, little is known about its impact in New Zealand.
Aims: We aim to determine the disease burden, epidemiology and outcomes of cirrhotic patients.
Methods: This is a retrospective study of cirrhosis patients under secondary public hospital care in a geographically defined region, between the years 2000 and 2011. Cirrhosis complications and mortality was recorded. Poisson log-linear regression analysis was performed for incidence rate ratio (IRR) and Cox regression analysis was used to analyse time-related events.
Results: Seven hundred and forty-six cirrhotic patients were analysed; most were European/Other (39.9%), Pacific islanders (21.6%), Southeast Asian/Chinese (17.8%) and Maori (12.3%). 68.4% were male. The common primary aetiologies for cirrhosis were chronic hepatitis B (CHB) cirrhosis (37.3%), alcoholic liver disease (ALD) cirrhosis (24.1%), chronic hepatitis C (CHC) cirrhosis (22.3%) and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) cirrhosis (16.4%). The hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) mortality rates were highest in NAFLD and CHB cirrhosis groups (3.0 and 3.1 per 100 patient-year respectively), compared with ALD and CHC groups (2.2 and 1.4 per 100 patient-year, all P < 0.05 respectively). Patients with ALD and NAFLD cirrhosis had the highest all-cause and non-HCC mortality rate compared with viral hepatitis cirrhosis groups. The IRR for HCC incidence, liver-related mortality and HCC mortality were 1.087, 1.098 and 1.114, respectively (all P < 0.001), suggesting increasing incidence and disease burden over the study period.
Conclusion: The number of cirrhotic patients in secondary care is increasing steadily. Cirrhosis complications and mortality rates are also rising, particularly the incidence and mortality of HCC.
Keywords: cirrhosis; cirrhosis mortality; hepatocellular carcinoma; liver complication; non-alcoholic liver disease; viral hepatitis.
© 2014 Royal Australasian College of Physicians.