Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2018. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Apr 7, 2018; 24(13): 1440-1450
Published online Apr 7, 2018. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v24.i13.1440
Mild drinking habit is a risk factor for hepatocarcinogenesis in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease with advanced fibrosis
Takefumi Kimura, Naoki Tanaka, Naoyuki Fujimori, Ayumi Sugiura, Tomoo Yamazaki, Satoru Joshita, Michiharu Komatsu, Takeji Umemura, Akihiro Matsumoto, Eiji Tanaka
Takefumi Kimura, Naoyuki Fujimori, Ayumi Sugiura, Tomoo Yamazaki, Satoru Joshita, Michiharu Komatsu, Takeji Umemura, Akihiro Matsumoto, Eiji Tanaka, Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology, Shinshu University School of Medicine, Matsumoto 390-8621, Japan
Naoki Tanaka, Department of Metabolic Regulation, Shinshu University Graduate School of Medicine, Matsumoto 390-8621, Japan
Naoki Tanaka, Research Center for Agricultural Food Industry, Shinshu University, Matsumoto 390-8621, Japan
Author contributions: Kimura T and Tanaka N designed the research; Fujimori N, Sugiura A, Yamazaki T, Joshita S, Komatsu M, Umemura T, and Matsumoto A treated the patients and collected materials and clinical data; Kimura T analyzed the data; Kimura T and Tanaka N wrote the paper; Tanaka E supervised the research.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Committee for Medical Ethics of Shinshu University School of Medicine Institutional Review Board.
Informed consent statement: Informed written consent was obtained from all patients.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that no conflict of interest exists.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Naoki Tanaka, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Doctor, Department of Metabolic Regulation, Shinshu University Graduate School of Medicine and Research Center for Agricultural Food Industry, Shinshu University, 3-1-1 Asahi, Matsumoto 390-8621, Japan. naopi@shinshu-u.ac.jp
Telephone: +81-263-372634 Fax: +81-263-329412
Received: January 31, 2018
Peer-review started: January 31, 2018
First decision: February 26, 2015
Revised: March 3, 2015
Accepted: March 10, 2018
Article in press: March 10, 2018
Published online: April 7, 2018
Processing time: 63 Days and 4.5 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: This study focused on the impact of a mild drinking habit on liver carcinogenesis in 301 biopsy-proven non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) patients. Multivariate analysis revealed that mild drinking of < 20 g/d might increase the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma in NAFLD patients, particularly those with advanced fibrosis (F3-4). NAFLD patients with severe fibrosis should abstain from even small amounts of regular alcohol consumption.