Morphologic spectrum of liver diseases among chronic alcoholics. A comparison between Tokyo, Japan and Cincinnati, U.S.A.

To deliniate the histopathological features of liver diseases seen in Japanese alcoholics, 130 Japanese alcoholic patients were studied in comparison with 238 American alcoholic patients. In Japan female alcoholic patients were extremely rare. The male to female ratio was 127 to 3 in Japan and 152 to 89 in U.S.A. Although all aspects of alcoholic liver disease did exist in Japan, typical cases of acute alcoholic hepatitis with alcholic hyalins were remarkably smaller in number (9.2% in Japan versus 39.5% in the U.S.A.). The severity based on histopathological findings was also less in the Japanese cases. In contrast to this, 46 percent of Japanese alcoholic patients had chronic hepatitis, and the incidence of multilobular cirrhosis was much greater in Japan wherewith higher prevalence of viral hepatitides.