Table 2.

Effects of alcoholic cirrhosis (case versus control) and recent drinking (reported abstinence for previous 60 days) on laboratory test results. For bilirubin, creatinine, AST, ALT, and GGT the significance of differences in means and of the interaction term was assessed on log-transformed data to reduce the effects of skewed distributions. To allow for multiple testing, p values less than 0.0038 (0.05/13) may be considered significant.

		Controls			Cases			p values
		Mean	SD	N	Mean	SD	N	Case–control	Abstinence	Interaction
Hemoglobin (g/L)	Abstinent	143.6	15.7	16	117.4	23.6	618	1.16 × 10−19	0.944	0.849
	Non-Abstinent	142.9	15.7	557	117.7	25.6	362
White cell count (cells/L × 10−9)	Abstinent	7.907	2.549	17	6.267	2.819	616	0.063	0.036	0.029
	Non-Abstinent	7.877	2.575	556	8.006	4.413	359
Platelet count (cells/L × 10−9)	Abstinent	251.9	64.3	17	135.8	71.6	613	3.02 × 10−27	0.742	0.480
	Non-Abstinent	248.3	81.3	555	146.0	82.8	361
INR (ratio)	Abstinent	1.008	0.243	17	1.402	0.455	595	3.14 × 10−17	0.817	0.495
	Non-Abstinent	0.986	0.154	497	1.447	0.508	326
Albumin (g/L)	Abstinent	41.5	4.4	17	35.4	6.9	596	4.01 × 10−18	0.864	0.134
	Non-Abstinent	43.0	5.6	545	34.2	7.7	333
Bilirubin (μmol/L)	Abstinent	10.6	8.1	17	50.8	81.6	621	5.20 × 10−31	0.176	0.032
	Non-Abstinent	9.3	7.3	553	88.7	130.1	363
Creatinine (μmol/L)	Abstinent	75.1	13.6	17	94.5	67.1	622	0.235	0.0068	0.122
	Non-Abstinent	71.9	17.8	558	75.3	39.2	360
ALT (units/L)	Abstinent	56.4	110.7	17	34.5	48.7	620	0.920	0.075	0.030
	Non-Abstinent	38.0	34.4	554	45.0	38.8	363
AST (units/L)	Abstinent	48.2	66.2	17	50.1	48.9	606	1.24 × 10−9	3.25 × 10−4	8.71 × 10−4
	Non-Abstinent	41.1	33.9	552	83.4	59.5	356
GGT (units/L)	Abstinent	285.5	924.2	17	126.4	171.4	581	1.35 × 10−9	7.39 × 10−7	3.54 × 10−4
	Non-Abstinent	113.6	156.8	553	424.0	627.2	348
AST/ALT ratio	Abstinent	1.136	0.386	17	1.743	1.029	606	8.18 × 10−13	0.051	0.124
	Non-Abstinent	1.184	0.435	547	2.113	0.952	355
AST/platelet ratio	Abstinent	0.190	0.225	17	0.524	0.595	596	5.24 × 10−25	0.017	0.061
	Non-Abstinent	0.201	0.247	547	0.841	1.017	353
MELD score	Abstinent	7.24	1.78	17	13.57	5.95	591	7.42 × 10−25	0.566	0.387
	Non-Abstinent	7.05	1.36	490	14.52	6.94	324