Translating new knowledge on drug-induced liver injury into clinical practice

Abstract

Drug-induced liver injury (DILI) is one of the main reasons for drug withdrawal from the market, and a cause of worldwide morbidity. Although several issues on DILI are still unsolved, there have been significant advances in new definitions and diagnosis tools. DILI is the result of a complex interaction between genetic and environmental factors, and constitutes an expanding area of investigation. DILI can mimic virtually all known hepatopathies, including vascular disorders and liver tumours. As part of this broad spectrum of clinical presentations, DILI severity ranges from asymptomatic elevations of aminotransferases to acute liver failure. Although biomarkers are emerging as valuable diagnostic tools, they are not available in clinical practice. Accurate DILI diagnosis is a challenging issue, particularly the establishing of causal relationships with the culprit agent and the exclusion of competing causes of liver injury. Given that the understanding of the mechanisms inducing DILI is growing, and both DILI causality assessment scales and the performance of international DILI networks have been improved, hepatotoxicity may be recognised earlier in clinical practice. In this review, advances and results obtained by DILI registries around the world, case characterisations, particularly those relevant to newer definitions in DILI, and the behaviour of chronic liver disease induced by drugs will be updated. In addition, recently published data on herbal and dietary supplements and new predictive scores for acute liver failure assessment will also be discussed.