Research: British livers

5 April 2006

The incidence of liver cirrhosis is rising alarmingly in the UK.

Fifty years ago, England and Wales had the lowest cirrhosis mortality rates in western Europe; now, recent research reveals, deaths from liver cirrhosis are rising faster in the UK than anywhere else in western Europe.

Professor David Leon at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Dr Jim McCambridge, holder of a Wellcome Trust Health Services Research Fellowship at the Institute of Psychiatry, compared cirrhosis mortality rates during 1955–2002 in the UK and in 12 western European countries.

The analysis shows that cirrhosis mortality rates in the UK increased steadily until the end of the 1970s, with accelerations in the 1980s and again from 1990–94 onwards. Rates among men in England and Wales rose by over two-thirds and in women by over a third. In Scotland, rates in men more than doubled and among women increased by almost two-thirds. Scottish cirrhosis mortality rates are now among the highest in western Europe.

In contrast, mortality rates in most other European countries have been falling since the late 1970s, particularly in southern Europe and France.

The most obvious cause of the increase in the Britain is rising overall alcohol consumption: there was a doubling between 1960 and 2002.

External links

• Leon DA, McCambridge J. Liver cirrhosis mortality rates in Britain from 1950 to 2002: an analysis of routine data. Lancet 2006;367(9504):52–6.