Constitutional factors in alcoholic cirrhosis.

The different sensitivity of the male and the female liver is well established, but there is an obvious difference in male livers as well. One possible explanation for these differences might be the existence of genetic peculiarities among patients with alcoholic cirrhosis. In the early twentieth, Chvostek in Vienna was the first to draw attention to a constitutional element which he believed to be fundamental: Absent body hair, absent or extremely spare hair on the limbs, and pubic hair of the female type, i.e. with horizontal upper border (1) (Fig. 1). Chvostek laid special stress on the fact that these anomalies were of genetic origin and were not a secondary phenomenon do to alcoholism or cirrhosis. The feminine pattern of hair distribution, the so-called "Chvostek's habitus", is a frequently seen condition but the statistical proof of its association with alcoholic cirrhosis in man is still missing. The purpose of our study was to investigate if the feminine pattern of hair distribution in male patients with alcoholic cirrhosis is a genetic characteristic, this anomaly is more frequently encountered in the alcoholic type than in the post-hepatitis type of cirrhosis, the reported discrepancies of HLA frequencies are due to genetic differences.