The results strongly reinforce the need for early alcohol assessments after liver transplantation and multidisciplinary interventions to help patients maintain abstinence.
"As observed and described extensively for hepatitis C virus reinfection, liver graft damage occurs very rapidly after alcohol relapse, leading to cirrhosis in a significant proportion of patients, and therefore complications of cirrhosis and death," said Dr. Jerome Dumortier, senior author of the Liver Transplantation study.
Source: Wiley