Cirrhosis mortality showed a sharp rise beginning in 2009, with a 3.6% annual increase driven entirely by a surge in alcoholic cirrhosis among young people aged 25-34 years, Elliot B. Tapper, MD, and Neehar D. Parikh, MD, reported in the BMJ. The uptick in hepatocellular carcinoma, however, was gradual and consistent, with a 2% annual increase felt mostly in older people, wrote Dr. Tapper and Dr. Parikh, both at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
“The increasing mortality due to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma speaks to the expanding socioeconomic impact of liver disease,” the colleagues wrote. “Adverse trends in liver-related mortality are particularly unfortunate given that in most cases the liver disease is preventable. Understanding the factors associated with mortality due to these conditions will inform how best to allocate resources.”
The study extracted its data from the Vital Statistic Cooperative and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The investigators not only examined raw mortality numbers, but analyzed them for demographic and geographic trends, in analyses that controlled for age.
Cirrhosis
During the study period, 460,760 patients died from cirrhosis (20,661 in 1999 and 34,174 in 2016, an increase of 65.4%).
Men were twice as likely to die from cirrhosis. Young people aged 25-34 years had the highest rate of increase (3.7% over the entire period and 10.5% from 2009 to 2016). This was directly driven by parallel increases in both alcohol use disorder and alcohol-related liver diseases, which increased by about 16% and 10%, respectively, in this group.
Native Americans had the highest mortality rate (25.8 per 100,000) followed by whites (12.7 per 100,000). “Notably, by 2016, cirrhosis accounted for 6.3% [up from 4.3% in 2009] and 7% [up from 5.8% in 2009] of deaths for Native Americans aged 25-34 and 35 or more, respectively,” and 2.3% of all deaths among adults aged 25-34 years, the authors wrote.
The increases were largely felt in the southern and western states (about 13 per 100,000 in each region). The greatest increases occurred in Kentucky (6.8%), New Mexico (6%), Arkansas (5.7%), Indiana (5%), and Alabama (5%). There was a statistically significant 1.2% decrease in deaths from cirrhosis in Maryland.
Hepatocellular carcinoma
Hepatocellular carcinoma accounted for 136,442 deaths during the study period (5,112 in 1999 and 11,073 in 2016 – an increase of 116.6%). This represented an average annual increase of 2%.
Men were four times more likely to die from hepatocellular carcinoma. The increase manifested mostly in older people, decreasing in those younger than 55 years. Mortality was highest among Asians and Pacific Islanders (6 per 100,000), followed by blacks (4.94 per 100,000).
The increases were largely felt in western states, with an overall increase of 4.2 per 100,000.
“Many of the same states with worsening cirrhosis-related mortality also experienced worsening mortality from hepatocellular carcinoma, including Oregon and Iowa,” the authors wrote. But mortality from the disease also increased significantly in Arizona (5.1%), Kansas (4.3%), Kentucky (4%), and Washington (3.9%).