Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver is Contributing to the Increase in Cases of Liver Disease in US Emergency Departments.

GOALS/BACKGROUND: We aimed to assess temporal changes in the different types of liver disease (LD) cases and outcomes from emergency departments (EDs) across the United States.

STUDY

We used data from the National Inpatient Survey database from 2005 to 2011. The International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision (ICD-9) clinical modification codes identified hepatitis C virus (HCV), hepatitis B virus (HBV), alcoholic liver disease (ALD), nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), and other LDs including autoimmune hepatitis. We excluded cases without LD, nonhepatocellular carcinoma-related cancers, human immunodeficiency virus infection, or those with missing information. Logistic regression was used to estimate odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals. Controls were matched to cases without LD.

RESULTS

During the study period, 20,641,839 cases were seen in EDs. Of these, 1,080,008 cases were related to LD and were matched to controls without LD (N=19,557,585). The number of cases with LD increased from 123,873 (2005) to 188,501 (2011) (P<0.0001). Among cases with LD, diagnosis of HCV, HBV, and ALD remained stable during the study years (41.60% vs. 38.20%, 3.70% vs. 2.80%, and 41.4% vs. 38.5%, respectively), whereas NAFLD doubled [6.00% of all LD (2005) to 11.90% of all LD (2011) (P<0.0001)]. Diagnosis of LD in the ED independently predicted increased patient mortality [odds ratio, 1.20 (1.17 to 1.22)].

CONCLUSIONS

The number of LD cases presenting to EDs is increasing, and a diagnosis of LD is associated with a higher patient mortality for those admitted through the ED. There is a dramatic increase of NAFLD diagnoses in the ED.