Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. Sep 27, 2022; 14(9): 1817-1829
Published online Sep 27, 2022. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v14.i9.1817
A retrospective study on use of palliative care for patients with alcohol related end stage liver disease in United States
Kamesh Gupta, Bandhul Hans, Ahmad Khan, Syed Hamza Sohail, Devika Kapuria, Chris Chang
Kamesh Gupta, Department of Gastroenterology, UMass Chan Medical School-Baystate, Springfield, MA 01199, United States
Bandhul Hans, Department of Internal Medicine, Allegheny General Hospital, Pittsburgh, PA 15212, United States
Ahmad Khan, Department of Gastroenterology, Case Western University, Cleveland, OH 44106, United States
Syed Hamza Sohail, Department of Internal Medicine, UMass Chan Medical School-Baystate, Springfield, MA 01199, United States
Devika Kapuria, Department of Gastroenterology, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63110, United States
Chris Chang, Department of Gastroenterology, University of New Mexico, Alberquerque, NM 46111, United States
Author contributions: Hans B and Gupta K contributed equally to this manuscript and should be considered co-first authors; Chang C and Kapuria D have equal contribution and are joint senior authors; Hans B and Gupta K devised the statistical analysis plan, wrote the statistical code and contributed in writing the manuscript; Kapuria D conceived the study idea and contributed in writing the manuscript; Khan A ran the statistical tests; Sohail SH performed a background literature search; Chang C was our faculty mentor who revised and edited the final manuscript; all authors provided critical feedback and helped shape the research analysis and manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: Since the paper contains data from a nationalized, publicly available, de-identified database, the paper is exempted for institutional review board.
Informed consent statement: Since the paper contains data from a nationalized, publicly available, de-identified database, the paper is exempted for institutional review board. Further, no patient consent was required for the same as no intervention was performed during the study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There are no conflicts of interest to report.
Data sharing statement: The database utlized is available with permission at https://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/db/nation/nis/nisdbdocumentation.jsp.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (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: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Kamesh Gupta, MD, Doctor, Department of Gastroenterology, UMass Chan Medical School-Baystate, 759 Chestnut St, Springfield, MA 01199, United States. kamesh.guptamd@bhs.org
Received: May 18, 2022
Peer-review started: May 18, 2022
First decision: June 23, 2022
Revised: July 4, 2022
Accepted: September 9, 2022
Article in press: September 9, 2022
Published online: September 27, 2022
Processing time: 119 Days and 9.8 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Alcohol related end stage liver disease (ESLD) carries a poor prognosis and is associated with significant loss of quality of life and symptom burden. We found that inpatient palliative care is sparingly used for patients with decompensated alcohol related liver disease, however it has increased over the past decade. Palliative care referral is associated with decreased hospitalization cost and length of stay in acute-on-chronic liver failure Positive alcohol-associated ESLD patients, as well as decreased rehospitalization rates in all alcohol associated ESLD patients.