Digital Therapeutic Linked With Decreased Alcohol Use in Patients With ARLD

Use of a digital therapeutic for patients with alcohol-related liver disease (ARLD) was associated with a significant decrease in alcohol use and a higher proportion of patients attaining alcohol abstinence, according to a preprint study posted online in medRxiv.

“This proof-of-concept study made the novel observation that AlcoChange, a digital therapeutic consisting of a smartphone app and digital breathalyzer, can be used successfully for self-monitoring of alcohol use and delivery of behavior change interventions in patients with ARLD,” wrote corresponding author Gautam Mehta of the Institute for Liver and Digestive Health, University College London, in the United Kingdom, and study coauthors.

The open-label, single-center study enrolled 65 patients with ARLD and ongoing alcohol use who received the digital therapeutic for 3 months. Some 41 patients completed both the baseline and 3-month visits.

Participants with digital therapeutic adherence, defined as more than 60 log-ins over the 3 months of the study, had a median 100% reduction in alcohol use (interquartile range [IQR] −100% to −55.1%) between baseline and 3 months compared with a median 57.1% reduction in alcohol use (IQR −95.3% to +32.1%) for patients without adherence, according to the study. Additionally, 57.1% of patients with adherence to the digital therapeutic attained abstinence at 3 months compared with 22.2% of patients without adherence.

Adherence was also associated with a lower risk of alcohol-related hospitalizations over 12 months of follow up, the study found.

“Adequately powered, randomized, multicenter clinical trials are justified by these data,” researchers wrote, “and have been initiated.”

Reference

Mehta G, Lin S, Nadar A, et al. Development and clinical evaluation of AlcoChange: a digital therapeutic for patients with alcohol-related liver disease. medRxiv. Published online August 22, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.08.22.23293936