BOSTON – Although current guidance calls for a liver biopsy prior to treatment withdrawal in autoimmune hepatitis (AIH), a retrospective observational analysis conducted by researchers from the Cleveland Clinic offers a different view.
“Maybe not everyone needs a liver biopsy before withdrawing treatment,” Yilien Alonso, MD, an internist at the Cleveland Clinic in Weston, Fla., said in an interview at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases.
Whitney McKnight/Frontline Medical News
Dr. Yilien Alonso
Both the European Association for Study of the Liver and the AASLD recommend liver biopsy prior to treatment withdrawal in AIH, but the expensive procedure is not without risk of morbidity and mortality. Dr. Alonso and her coinvestigators reviewed the records of 508 AIH patients seen at their institution between January 2001 and April 2015. After excluding the records of patients who’d had juvenile onset of AIH, or who were treated with agents other than corticosteroids and azathioprine, the researchers found 34 adults with similar pretreatment profiles who’d had treatment withdrawal after 2 years of excellent response to treatment, 10 of whom had a liver biopsy prior to treatment withdrawal.
The outcomes at 1 year post treatment withdrawal for all 34 were similar, with no difference in flare rates or reinitiation of treatment. In those who’d had the second liver biopsy, the fibrosis stage was noted at 1 year to have declined in three patients.
“If you have a stable patient population that you are tracking every 3-6 months, we don’t see why you can’t stop the treatment without having to have another invasive procedure,” Dr. Alonso said.
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