TBA (18W126)

Incidence Of Autoimmune Hepatitis In Co.Mayo A Population Based Study

Author(s)

A.Ahmed C.Nkemjika B. Egan

Department(s)/Institutions

Gastroenterology department, Mayo University Hospital, Castlebar, Co.Mayo

Introduction

Autoimmune hepatitis is a form of chronic inflammatory disease of the liver that starts as an acute hepatitis and may progresses to chronic liver disease, cirrhosis and HCC, this usually requires long term immunosuppressive treatment, surveillance program and possible liver transplantation.

Aims/Background

Our aim was to assess the incidence of autoimmune hepatitis in County Mayo ( population of 130,638) in the last 10 years.

Method

We did a retrospective study on all the liver biopsies performed in Mayo University Hospital between march 2007 until march 2018 (992 biopsies), all histology reports which showed probable AIH were examined together with the autoantibody profile and the final diagnosis made.

Results

17 patients were diagnosed with autoimmune hepatitis in the period between March 2007 and March 2018 with an incidence rate of 1.3/100,000 persons. The female-to-male ratio was 5.6:1 The lowest age at diagnosis was 25 and the highest age was 77.

Conclusions

The incidence of autoimmune hepatitis diagnosed in County Mayo is in accordance with the data available which estimates the incidence rate in Western Europe of 1-2 per 100,000 population. Although the incidence rate is quite low for AIH it remains a high disease burden as it needs a high suspicion for diagnosis and swift decision to treat with multiple possible complications. This data can be used as part of national data collection to estimate the incidence and prevalence of autoimmune hepatitis in Ireland.