Home > Clinical question: How does pentoxifylline affect outcomes in people with alcoholic hepatitis?

Gruenebaum, Dane (2016) Clinical question: How does pentoxifylline affect outcomes in people with alcoholic hepatitis? Cochrane Clinical Answers,

External website: https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cca/doi/10.1002/cc...

Low‐to‐moderate quality evidence suggests there may be a mortality benefit to adding pentoxifylline to standard care in alcoholic hepatitis patients, at the cost of increased adverse effects and a higher withdrawal rate.

When comparing standard care alone with adding pentoxifylline or adding placebo to standard care, there was a reduction in mortality at 1‐6 months (257 per 1000 people taking pentoxifylline died vs. 400 per 1000 people taking placebo). Similarly hepatic‐related mortality at 1‐6 months was lower in people taking pentoxifylline (169 per 1000 people taking pentoxifylline died of hepatic complications vs. 423 per 1000 people taking placebo). Hepatic‐related morbidity (variceal bleeds at 1 month) was reported by two of the RCT including 132 patients and there were similar rates in both groups. Two trials with around 100 patients reported adverse effects, one reporting 33 events in people taking pentoxifylline vs. 15 events in people taking placebo, the other reporting a higher withdrawal rate with pentoxifylline (15% vs. 2%).

None of the trials assessed quality of life.


Repository Staff Only: item control page