Systematic Reviews
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2019. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jun 14, 2019; 25(22): 2809-2818
Published online Jun 14, 2019. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v25.i22.2809
Autoimmune hepatitis treatment in the elderly: A systematic review
Marilena Durazzo, Giulia Lupi, Michela Scandella, Arianna Ferro, Gabriella Gruden
Marilena Durazzo, Giulia Lupi, Michela Scandella, Arianna Ferro, Gabriella Gruden, Department of Medical Sciences, University of Turin, Turin 10126, Italy
Author contributions: Durazzo M designed the systematic review and critically revised the work; Lupi G, Scandella M and Ferro A performed the systematic research; Durazzo M, Lupi G, Ferro A, and Scandella M wrote the paper; Gruden G revised the text and the English.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The Authors declare no conflict of interest.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: The authors have read the PRISMA 2009 Checklist and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the PRISMA 2009 Checklist.
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/
Corresponding author: Marilena Durazzo, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Medical Sciences, University of Turin, C So AM Dogliotti 14, Turin 10126, Italy. marilena.durazzo@unito.it
Telephone: +39-11-633-5541 Fax: +39-11-633-5401
Received: March 14, 2019
Peer-review started: March 14, 2019
First decision: April 10, 2019
Revised: April 30, 2019
Accepted: May 8, 2019
Article in press: May 8, 2019
Published online: June 14, 2019
Processing time: 93 Days and 19.6 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Autoimmune hepatitis (AIH) is a severe liver disease that affects patients worldwide. Conventional treatment with a steroid and azathioprine is the mainstay of treatment. Although elderly patients have a relatively high incidence of AIH, data on its treatment in the elderly are limited. We focused on this subgroup of patients and systematically reviewed studies testing both efficacy and safety of AIH treatments in old patients. Available data support the use of conventional treatment, while the effect of other drugs has only been tested in small case series.