Propylthiouracil for Alcoholic Liver Disease

To the Editor: The randomized clinical trial of propylthiouracil for treatment of alcoholic liver disease reported in the Journal (Dec. 3 issue)¹ was well designed and well implemented. The authors concluded that propylthiouracil affects long-term mortality favorably. It is noteworthy that most of the deaths in the placebo group (11 of 20) occurred within the first 12 weeks of the study. By contrast, only 3 of the 10 deaths in the propylthiouracil group occurred during the first 12 weeks. An earlier randomized clinical trial by the same group of researchers demonstrated no short-term survival advantage with propylthiouracil therapy.² Presumably, the.