Early mortality of alcoholic hepatitis: A review of data from placebo-controlled clinical trials

AIM: To investigate the early mortality of placebo-treated alcoholic hepatitis patients. METHODS: Mortality data about alcoholic hepati-tis patients who participated in randomized placebo-controlled trials were searched from PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library, extracted and analyzed. RESULTS: A total of 661 placebo-treated patients in 19 trials were included. The overall mortality rate was 34.19 % with a median observation time of 160 d (range 21-720 d). Hepatic failure, gastrointestinal bleeding and infection were the three main causes of death, ac-counting for 55.47%, 21.17 % and 7.30 % of all deaths, respectively. One-month mortality data about 324 placebo-treated alcoholic hepatitis patients in 10 trial