Patients hospitalized for alcoholic hepatitis do markedly worse if they have an infection on admission, according to a recent study by researchers in England and Ireland.
The retrospective study, of 215 patients, found that infections raised the risk for death within 90 days of hospitalization by 64% over the average mortality rate (P<0.05). Although 31% of patients were diagnosed with an infection on admission, in 69% of cases the problem became evident during hospitalization (Figure).
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