The Association between Alcohol, Hepatic Pathology and Dupuytren’s Disease

Abstract

We have looked at the incidence of Dupuytren’s disease in alcoholics, those with non-alcoholic liver disease and a control population. Both alcoholic patients and those with non-alcohol related liver disease had a higher rate (28% and 22% respectively) than the controls (8%), but this did not quite reach statistical significance (p > 0.05). In addition we found no Dupuytren’s disease in 50 Egyptian patients with bilharzia and no consistent biochemical abnormalities in 134 patients with significant Dupuytren’s disease. We conclude that alcoholics probably do have a higher rate of Dupuytren’s disease and that this effect is largely due to the liver disease caused by alcohol abuse, but that the genetic factors are of greater aetiological importance.