Clinical characteristics and prognosis of severe alcoholic hepatitis in a cohort of 258 Chinese patients

Severe alcoholic hepatitis (SAH) has been scarcely studied. We aimed to examine the clinical characteristics and analyze the prognostic factors of SAH in China and retrospectively collected data on patients diagnosed as SAH in Beijing 302 Hospital from December 2003 to February 2014. Two hundred and fifty-eight patients were included. Median in-hospital time was 18 days. Of these patients, 254 (98.4%) were male. The in-hospital mortality of the whole cohort arrived at 25.19%. In the established model for predicting in-hospital death, three variables were finally selected out, including cholinesterase (P=0.012), creatinine (P=0.025) and the presence of acute upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage (P=0.008). Eventually, this model had a sensitivity of 71.7% and specificity 67.9% respectively. In conclusion, the established model can be used to effectively determine the prognosis of SAH and help to improve the management of these critically-ill patients.