Objective: To analyse the etiology, clinical features and prognosis of drug-induced liver disease (DILD), in order to draw more attention to this problem.
Methods: 332 cases of DILD admitted to the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University from 2000-2006 were retrospectively analysed.
Results: A variety of drugs, including herbal medicines (27.1% of our total cases), anti-tuberculosis drugs (13.3%) and immunosuppressive drugs (10.8%) caused drug-induced liver damage. The hepatocellular type (43.1%) was the most common type seen clinically and the mixed type (32.5%) and cholestatic type (24.4%) were somewhat less.
Conclusions: A variety of medicines may cause DILD; herbal medicines, anti-tuberculosis drugs and immunosuppressive drugs were frequently found to be responsible, the hepatocellular type was the most common, while the mixed type and cholestatic type were somewhat less. Serum albumin, total bile acids, direct bilirubin and blood prothrombin time are important predictors of the prognosis of DILD.