Chronic liver disease: international comparisons

International data on chronic liver disease (CLD) mortality trends have been extracted from the European Health for All (HfA) Database. The definition of ICD codes are: ICD10 K70, K73 and K74 and ICD9 571.0-571.6.

The CLD Mortality Trend Data – European Comparison table (39Kb) compares Scotland to countries in Central, Northern, Southern and Western Europe from 1982 to 2020. In summary;

• Scotland, along with Hungary and Finland, have had some of the highest CLD death rates in recent years among countries from Central, Western, Northern and Southern Europe. In comparison, Norway and the Netherlands have had consistently low CLD mortality rates since 1982. Other countries which initially had very high rates of CLD deaths, such as Italy and Portugal, have generally seen a steady reduction in CLD death rate since 1982 and have been amongst the better performing countries in Europe in the last few years.
• The CLD death rate in Scotland increased between 1982 and 2003. This is in contrast to the majority of European countries where CLD deaths were decreasing. Between 2003 and 2012, CLD death rates in Scotland fell, levelling off at around 5 per 100,000 population. Thereafter the rate remained relatively stable until 2015 before increasing to 16.8 per 100,000 population in 2016.

Further information on trends in chronic liver disease in Europe is available on the European Health for All (HfA) Database pages.