Drug Induced Liver Injury (DILI)

Drugs are an important reason for liver injury. Liver injury occurs because of use of more than 900 drugs, toxins, and herbs and drugs represent 20 – 40 percent of all instances of fulminant liver failure. Around 75 percent of the idiosyncratic drug reactions will leads to transplantation of liver or even death sometimes. Drug Hepatotoxicity is the most common reason for withdrawal of an approved drug. Doctors must be vigilant in recognizing drug-related liver injury as because if it will be detected earlier, then it could decrease the severity of hepatotoxicity if the drug is discontinued. The illustrations of DILI are highly variable, ranging from asymptomatic elevation of liver enzymes to fulminant liver failure. Information on commonly implicated agents and a high index of suspicion are very much essential in diagnosis.     

In U.S.A., around 200 cases of acute liver failure occur every year and drugs account for over 50% of them (39% are because of acetaminophen, 13% are idiosyncratic reaction because of other meds). Drugs accounts for 2-5% of cases of patients who all are hospitalized with jaundice and around 10% of all cases of acute hepatitis.