Michal Brunčák, Ľubomír Skladaný, Ján Strachan, Jozef Baláž
Alcoholic hepatitis (AH) is a clinical syndrome in patients with long-term alcohol abuse, with one month mortality up to
30 % in severe cases. Prednisone or pentoxifylline are currently the drugs of choice. These drugs are recommended for
patients with Maddrey score (MDF) ≥ 32 or MELD score ≥ 21. Lille score is used to determine response to treatment with
corticosteroids. Unfortunatelly, in many patients the treatment is ineffective, and new treatment methods are desperately
needed. For non-responders (Lille score ≥ 0.45) the only curative therapy is early liver transplantation. But to meet
the traditional 6-month rule of abstinence with such a high mortality, is mostly impossible. That is why the AH becoming
the hot topic in hepatology. The aim of ongoing prospective studies, in addition to find new treatment options, is
to precisely define selection criteria for urgent liver transplantation in non-responders to corticosteroids.