Abstract

Background: Alcoholic Liver Disease (ALD) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality not only in India but also worldwide. The evidence that oxidative stress is involved in the pathogenesis of ALD and Vitamin E deficiency being well documented in patients of ALD, an antioxidant like Vitamin E could likely be beneficial in patients with ALD. Aims and Objectives: To study the effect of Vitamin E supplementation over a period of 12 weeks on Quality of life of patients with ALD.
Materials and Methods: This is a prospective, open labeled, randomized study involving a total of 30 adult patients diagnosed with ALD who were randomized into two groups of 15 each and were designated as group A (received standard treatment) and group B (received Vitamin E along with standard treatment). Quality of life was assessed by using Chronic Liver Disease Questionnaire (CLDQ) through its various domains along with global score, as a baseline measure before and after completing the treatment period of three months in each group and the scores were recorded and compared. Result: In group A, scores in CLDQ-FA, CLDQ-AC domains and CLDQ-Global showed a statistically highly significant (P<0.001) improvement whereas in group B, there was a statistically highly significant change in all the domains of CLDQ along with CLDQ-Global score after the treatment duration. When the differences observed in various CLDQ scores in Group A were compared with those seen in Group B, the changes in CLDQ-Global score and CLDQ-SY domain score observed in Group B were highly significant (PV0.001) and also CLDQ-AB domain and CLDQ-FA domain in Group B were statistically significant (P<0.05) compared to their respective changes observed in Group A. Conclusion: The result of this study suggests that supplementation of Vitamin E to standard treatment has significantly improved the Quality of Life in patients with ALD as evidenced by an improvement in the CLDQ scoring.