Citation

Melato M, Laurino L, Poldrugo F. Alcoholism (Zagreb) 1990; 26(1-2): 17-23.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1990, Center for study and Control of Alcoholism and Addictions (Croatia))

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Mortality has been evaluated in 1227 alcoholics admitted to the Psychiatric Clinic of the University of Trieste in the years 1974-1986. Of these, 291 (23.6% of the total sample) were deceased till October 31, 1987 and in 189 cases autopsy records were available. Major causes of death, evaluated according to death certificates, were liver cirrhosis (28% of the sample), cancer (20%) and cardiovascular diseases (19.8%). Frequency of liver cirrhosis in the autopsy sample was 43.4%. Frequency of stroke was 10.58% with a statistically significant difference in the distribution among cirrhotics and non-cirrhotics (7.33% and 13.08%, respectively). These data confirm that alcoholics have higher mortality rates, but that cardiovascular mortality is lower than expected. This is very likely due to liver cirrhosis which decreases frequency of stroke in alcoholics.

Language: en

Keywords

adult; human; suicide; female; male; alcoholism; stroke; mortality; article; major clinical study; cancer; liver cirrhosis