Low incidence of cytolysin-positive E. faecalis and no correlation to survival in Danish patients with alcohol-associated hepatitis: A prospective cohort study

TL;DR

This study found no link between cytolysin-producing E. faecalis in the gut and higher mortality in Danish patients with alcohol-related liver disease.

Contribution

The study challenges prior findings by showing no correlation between cytolysin-positive E. faecalis and mortality in a Danish AH cohort.

Findings

Only 10.7% of hospitalized Danish AH patients had cytolysin-positive E. faecalis in their fecal samples.

No significant difference in mortality was observed between cytolysin-positive and cytolysin-negative patients after 180 days.

Baseline characteristics were similar between cytolysin-positive and cytolysin-negative patients.

Abstract

Alcohol-associated hepatitis (AH) is a severe and life-threatening form of alcohol-associated liver disease with no approved treatments for reducing long-term mortality. Cytolysin-producing E. faecalis in the gut microbiota of AH patients has been reported as highly correlated to mortality. We investigated whether we could reproduce this correlation in a cohort of Danish patients with AH. Fecal samples from 28 hospitalized patients with AH were analyzed for cytolysin-producing E. faecalis and were followed for 1 y after hospital admission. The primary endpoint was comparison of 180-d mortality in AH patients with and without cytolysin-positive fecal samples. Three of twenty-eight (10.7%) fecal samples were identified as cytolysin-positive. There were no significant differences at baseline between cytolysin-positive and -negative patients in terms of age, Glasgow Alcoholic Hepatitis Score, Charlson Comorbidity Index or biochemical variables (INR, bilirubin, albumin). There was no difference in mortality between the groups 180 d after hospital admission; one of the three (33%) cytolysin-positive patients had died compared to 9 of the 25 (36%) cytolysin-negative (p-value for difference = 1.0). We report a low incidence of cytolysin-positive E. faecalis in hospitalized Danish AH patients and no greater risk of mortality compared to cytolysin-negative AH patients.

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