Rise in liver ailments in south coastal AP districts

Nellore: Viral infections and alcohol consumption were found to be principal reasons for increasing liver ailments in south coastal districts. The trend in the districts has been intensifying due to over-boozing and sedentary/careless lifestyles.

A senior transplantation specialist from the Global Hospitals said this has become a common phenomenon where they had transplanted 1,000 liver cases in Tamil Nadu and major reason was alcohol that occupies 50 per cent with cases.

Similar was the case in Andhra Pradesh where they found majority were alcohol related cases and the new trend is people, who are prone to diabetes, are also getting liver ailments due to negligence and failing to control the glucose levels in the body.

“Excess consumption of alcohol and obesity is affecting majority people. Other reasons for liver ailments are lack of regular exercise and viral infections like Hepatitis A and B,” said Dr PV Rajanikanth. He added that earlier only alcohol and hepatitis were the main cause, and many added recently to the list.

He said when they had conducted 1,000 liver transplantation in Tamil Nadu for the last 4-5 years they observed 50 per cent cases were due to over use of alcohol. Rest 50 per cent due to fatty liver and viral infection, he said. In case of south coastal Andhra Pradesh, he said, alcohol and viral infections were the major reasons.

But, the expert cautioned that fatty liver is a common ailment among diabetics, alcoholics and people, who do neglect fat content in the food. But, sometimes, this fatty liver turns into severe liver ailments like Cirrhosis where complication involves loss of liver cells and irreversible scarring of the liver.

Fatty liver cases can be classified into three categories where stage 3 is the alarming stage where the patients need to avail medical care for preventing Cirrhosis. He denied apprehensions on every fatty liver patient gets cirrhosis. He indicated that in UK, USA and other parts of the globe where fatty liver was the major source for Cirrhosis was only due to over use of fats and junk food.

He suggested liver transplantation is final solution in case of acute cases and family members can also donate 50 per cent of their healthy liver. But, he admitted that the surgery is expensive with Rs 25 lakh where costly material has to be used and a team of doctors have to perform surgery carefully. He said the AP government is supporting to the tune of Rs 10 lakh and the patients have to bear the rest.

By P V Prasad